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MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY 
The stable-clothing should be warmer, the usual quantity 
of food should be diminished, and bran-mashes given instead 
of hard food. 
CLIPPING. 
It is an utter absurdity to denude the animal of its 
natural quantity of clothing. It has been a practice to clip 
hunters, so that the coat of the animal may sooner dry after 
a long run; but there is less danger to be apprehended 
from the longer coat, although it does not thoroughly dry, 
than when the short hair of the clipped animal exposes the 
overheated skin to the chilling effects of a frosty atmo¬ 
sphere, and thus during pauses from exercise the horse 
must suffer severely from cold, and besides is liable to be 
attacked by inflammation. 
I am aware that many persons of much experience will 
differ with me in what I have said upon this subject. 
Waiving my objections, it must be admitted that the skin 
of the animal will dry much sooner after hard labour when 
he has a thin coat, and undoubtedly much labour will be 
saved to the groom, which is of material consequence. It 
has been said that horses which have short hair feed much 
sooner after a hard run than those which have a long and 
rough coat; and then when once it is dried, there is less 
chance of its afterwards breaking out into a sweat. 
SINGEING. 
Many approve and recommend this operation, and by a 
little practice it can be singed nearly as close as in clipping. 
The instrument used is a piece of iron, about four inches 
wide at the extremity, made in the form of a Dutch-hoe, 
and inserted into a handle six or eight inches long. Some 
wick-cotton must be rolled round the bar at the bottom of 
