STABLE MANAGEMENT. 
677 
what a point from which radiate contracted hoofs, corns, 
navicular disease, and all the ills that feet are heirs to : how 
we could wish to beeorne a subtle spirit in the brain of every 
smith about to apply the first shoes, how soon we would dispel 
the notion that a colt’s foot is a very unsightly piece of 
mechanism that requires to be rasped and cut into proper 
form. Save us — proper form ! How we would in the gentlest 
manner insinuate to him the propriety of shutting up his 
knife in the cupboard for that time, or, at the most, using the 
back of it to scrape away any broken horn, and not cut and 
leave open those tubes which will pour out their liquid 
contents, and forthwith become hard and brittle. Then, 
becoming more subdued as we found our suggestions attended 
to, we should in the most matter-of-fact way ask him to make 
a shoe to fit the foot, and not the foot to fit the shoe ; we 
should pray him to protect the sole by a broad cover, to leave 
the heels of the shoe thinner than any other part, and, lastly, 
to put two nails in the inside quarter, and four on the outside ; 
having so done, we should quit our temporary habitation, 
with the pleasing conviction that for once in his life at 
least a horse had been properly shod by our instrumentality. 
We have our animal in action now, condition good, worked 
at first moderately, and located in an appropriate stable, well 
lighted, drained, and ventilated ; we will treat him as a 
working horse, and inquire how and when we shall feed and 
tend him. 
The quantity of food and frequency of administration must 
of course altogether depend upon the amount of work the 
horse is called upon to perform ; the quality also, and character 
of the provender will be modified by the same circumstance ; 
the really hard-worked animal, the fly-horse during the London 
season, can and does take his eight or ten feeds per day, some- 
times of pure unmixed oats, no time being allowed him for 
the consumption of more bulky and less nutritious material ; 
the draught horse, at the time he is but little required, will 
keep up his condition even without oats at all, providing he 
has meanwhile a plentiful supply of good hay. We are 
acquainted, indeed, with establishments where the work is 
irregular, though sometimes severe, the horses being entirely 
fed on bran, but the result appears to be anything but satis- 
factory : a rough coat, soft muscle, and excessive perspiration 
under exertion, show the system to be ill sustained by such 
aliment, independently of the disposition such animals have 
to skin diseases of various types, especially surfeit. 
We are justified, then, in holding as an axiom that for the 
working horse, oats are an indispensable requisite for the 
