AND HIS VAlllOUS DllKEDS. 
727 
will assist her very materially to secure the well-doing of her un¬ 
born offspring. She should be kept quiet, and apart from other 
horses; and if these circumstances are attended to, there will most 
generally be little difficulty attending her parturition. 
When the period of her parturient condition is drawing near, she 
should be watched, and shut up during the night in a safe yard or 
loose box by herself, and, during the day, in a field where there are 
neither ditches, bogs, nor other dangerous places. 
When this period is over, should the weather be favourable, she 
may be turned into a well-sheltered paddock; but if otherwise, 
must be kept in a large and commodious shed or cool box. Good 
grass is particularly beneficial, but should be brought in at night. 
She should also have corn night and morning. 
Every care should be taken of the colt when young, for, as to 
its temper, much depends on its early education. A great many evil 
propensities may be traced to bad management when young. The 
colt, when weaned from the mare, should be turned into a loose 
box, where it may be fed on oats, bran, and boiled carrots. It 
should be haltered, and every means used to render it domesticated 
and tractable, so that it may be led about. Of course, should the 
weather admit, it should be turned out to grass a few hours every 
day, as this exercise will contribute much to its increasing growth 
and strength, but always brought in at night. It should certainly 
be well fed on corn. To improperly limit this while he is growing is 
highly injurious, and the animal will bear the traces of this mistaken 
practice, and be much reduced in value. It is an old but most true 
axiom, if an animal does not pay for keeping, it does not for starving. 
To whatever cause mav be attributed the decrease of useful 
horses in this country, whether poverty or want of knowledge on the 
part of breeders are separately or conjointly concerned, most cer¬ 
tain it is, that a good horse may be bred at a cost quite as low as 
one of an inferior description. Still we must regret the paucity of 
good horses that are now bred, and trust, by a more enlarged and 
comprehensive view of this important subject, that greater attention 
will be paid to the pure and proper selection of sire and dam, and 
a better adaptation of the one to the other. We shall then meet 
with fewer disppointments in finding so promising a mare with so 
faulty a foal, or the no less vexation that so promising a colt should 
grow into so weedy and useless a horse. 
My ultimate object in this and the preceding observations is, to 
deduce the plain and practical truth, that if we are desirous to per¬ 
petuate a race of high bred and enduring horses, we must carefully 
select for purposes of breeding the most perfect of cither sex, in 
the vigour of life, and free from any imperfection that may by de¬ 
scent be a blemish in their progeny. It was usual for the Spartans 
