CATTLE AND HORSE INSURANCE. 
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to know, that in this establishment we have always a great number 
of old horses, and, indeed, are obliged to slaughter some old ones 
every year, and cull others, now and then, for sale, as they get slow 
and otherwise incapacitated, in order to make room for younger 
ones. This is attributable to careful management and the reciprocal 
advantages of the farm. No doubt that horses used for agriculture 
would be the longest lived of any were their general management 
in consonance with their healthful employment. 
3. This description of horse, I think, often wears well, doing 
their work to a great age. Some may get too slow, at from 16 
to 20, or may be put to slow work, on account of stiffness or some 
description of lameness. It is their legs that oftener fail than their 
constitution. 
4. Hunters, I think, although occasionally known to do their 
work to a greater age, begin to get too slow, or otherwise unfit for 
work, at about 16. 
Many stallions are kept here, not exclusively for covering, but 
as being altogether more enduring than geldings. 
5. Brood mares, upon the whole, I think, are not longer livers 
than other horses ; for, although for the most part they are kept in 
a condition which does not subject them so much to the common 
causes of disease, they have the additional contingencies of breed- 
ing, parturition, & c. 
6. As it regards the average mortality of the different classes — 
several have died under my treatment, others have died suddenly 
and without any treatment, and many that have been killed as 
worn out are taken into the account 
7. Farmers’ horses are occasionally the subjects of every variety 
of disease, — strangles, distemper, catarrhal fever, epidemics, and 
the severest bronchitis and pneumonia, which occasionally rage in 
the character of an epidemic, they are very obnoxious to. It 
matters not where the situation or what the kind of management 
in many of the epidemics. Many disorders of the stomach and 
bowels are very fatal; as spasm, rupture, strangulation, ente- 
ritis, &c. 
In the second variety of the horse, diseases of the stomach and 
bowels are not so frequent, but chest affections in general a little 
more so. 
The third variety of the horse are still less subject to intestinal 
disorders, but chest affections are more frequent ; and we likewise 
oftener find disease of the liver, kidneys, &c. The most destructive 
are disorders of the chest. 
The hunter particularly is exposed to accidents, the variety of 
which I need not enter into. He is, however, especially subject 
to pulmonary congestion, which is, in this description of horse, 
perhaps the most destructive disorder to which he is exposed. 
