REMARKS ON THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS. 647 
their whole frame, strengthens the muscles, preserves their bowels 
free, and keeps them from getting out of shape and form.” 
Although, on the whole, we subscribe most cordially to this 
improved plan of summering the hunter, yet do we feel great 
disinclination to depriving our hard-working servant of that indul¬ 
gence and sw T eet enjoyment which the bountiful hand of nature 
prepared for him at the very time of the year that his labours 
cease to be required : there is, we feel assured, after all, a virtue 
in Dr. Green as a constitutional refresher, and a virtue in cold 
air as a leg-and-feet restorer, which we ought never to disregard 
or hold in light estimation; and on this account, we would use 
every endeavour to provide the accommodation of a paddock of 
the description recommended by our author. We should wish our 
laid-up hunters to have a plentiful supply of spring-grass, not 
omitting the two feeds of corn: at the same time, we should like 
to have a moist situation for their feet, a free and open air over¬ 
head for them to breathe, with plenty of good w r ater, and ample 
shelter from the heat or inclemency of the weather. The loss of 
condition so justly complained of by Nimrod, consequent on the 
old mode of procedure, has arisen from the deprivation of a nutri¬ 
tious diet; and the substitution for it of one, which, though of a 
wholesome and even more natural kind, yet, to such a high-fed 
animal, cannot but prove lowering and debilitative, and insuf¬ 
ficient of itself, even in a state of repose, to keep up any such 
condition as he has acquired in the stable. Not that we are to 
understand by this, that a hunter is to be kept wound up to the 
mark all the summer during his interval of repose—so far from it, 
every nerve and fibre in his body should be unbraced and slackened: 
his circulation and respiration should be set quiet; his digestion 
should be made easy; his secretions and excretions should be 
brought down to their natural standard; in fine, every animal and 
vital function should now enjoy repose, and yet not one of them 
should be suffered to languish from the want of any accustomed sti¬ 
mulus, either in the shape of food or bodily comfort. Turning a 
horse out of a warm stable, deprived of clothing and of highly nu¬ 
tritive and invigorating provender, to shiver all day long under the 
influence of a north-easter, even in the month of May—feeding 
upon but a scanty bite of spring-grass, although it may not 
directly occasion disease—is a mode of depriving a hunter of his 
condition only to be surpassed by exposing him subsequently to 
a meridian July sun, surrounded by a host of flies, up to his 
knees in pasture, become too old or too dry and harsh to create 
in him much appetite for any more of it. Weather permitting 
and grass growing, we should say, hunters can hardly be turned 
out too soon after the conclusion of their season of labour ; and 
