CURSORY REMARKS. 
417 
Page 112 ; subject matter, an Essay on Broken Wind, by 
Mr. W. Smith ; read by the Secretary. — This, Sir, brings to my 
recollection a passage from your pen which made an indelible im- 
pression on my mind, and I have consequently no difficulty in 
turning to it. You commenced your 31st lecture (four years back) 
with the following words : — “ I have hinted,” you say, “ at the 
disadvantages under which the veterinary surgeon labours in his 
treatment of the diseases of the chest, and particularly in the 
horse. He must not only subdue the malady, but he must re- 
move all the consequences. He must leave his patient perfectly 
sound , or he has done comparatively nothing.” I wish this were 
not the case, but such it is to the very letter; and either what is 
called thick wind or broken wind is always to be dreaded as the 
sequela of a severe affection of the chest. But I must return to 
the subject before me, — Mr. Smith’s Essay on Broken Wind. 
I am here introduced as having asserted, that I have not seen 
five broken-winded horses during upwards of six years’ residence 
in France, which assertion I believe to be true to the letter; and 
it is in part corroborated by the authority of your President, 
who says (p. 116), that, in a journey on the continent of several 
thousand miles, he only saw one. Now this is really puzzling, 
but the causa causa must exist, and should be sought for. Has 
the method of making the hay any thing to do with it? It here 
is not suffered to sweat in the rick, as the term is. In fact, a 
Middlesex hay-farmer would say it is spoiled before it is at- 
tempted to be ricked at all. Indeed, it has a hundred times 
annoyed me to see not only meadow hay, but clover and lucern, 
cocked in the very best condition, and then left in the field until 
the rain has penetrated, perhaps half a dozen times, to the very 
lowest stratum of the cock, and to the total destruction of the 
plant which was growing under it. Unless it has been that 
which I have had carried to my premises from the field, and that 
which I saw in the racing-stables near Paris, I have never 
smelt a sweet lock of hay after the month of October, since I 
have been in France. So much for the hay, which, to appear- 
ance, is only fit to keep cow stock alive through the winter*. 
* A circumstance once came under my observation that led me to believe 
horses value hay by the flavour it imparts to the palate, and phy little regard 
to the fragrance of it, which chiefly depends on harvesting. I saw some 
beautifully-scented meadow hay put before nine hungry horses, which they 
instantly left off eating on some florin grass (agrostis stolonifera ) being 
placed in their mangers. The florin grass had been harvested in November ; 
had been merely thrown under a shed ; had not an atom of fragrance ; in fact, 
it was so far musty or mouldy, that a white cloud issued from it when stirred. 
It is the prevalence of saccharine matter that renders this grass so palatable 
to all sorts of cattle; and I have often expressed surprise at its not being 
