463 
CLIPPING BATTERY HORSES. 
BY 
COLONEL T. B. TYLER, R.A. 
In publishing the following short article the Committee wish to make it known 
that they have received other papers on the same subject from Majors E. M. 
Bland, E. A. Lambart, and R. Bannatine-Allason, R.A. 
These papers are all very good, and the Committee are sorry that the amount 
of space at their disposal precludes the publication either of them or of any 
further papers on the subject. 
Major Phillpotts is quite right to state his objections to the arguments 
of Major Challenor as to the clipping of horses, but he should not imply 
that those who disagree with him are actuated by dishonest motives. 
He observes that it is necessary to clip horses in India because the 
heat in the daytime, even in the cold weather, is considerable; but so, 
I would remind him is the cold at night, and great differences of tem¬ 
perature are very trying to horses. Cold after all is a relative term ; 
in the hot weather in India we feel chilly when the thermometer sud¬ 
denly falls to 70°, and when, after a cold spell in Canada, the temperature 
rises to 10°, we seem to be enjoying the climate of an English spring. 
Thus, though the conditions may be different, I think a horse suffers 
quite as much from cold on the picket lines in Northern India as he 
does in a stable at home. And the English horse in his own country 
is a much hardier animal than the Australian in India. 
A horse's winter coat is designed by nature to afford him protection 
from frost and cold winds in the open fields, and is far heavier than is 
necessary to an animal living in a stable, and much encumbrance to 
one called upon to take strong exercise. If Major Phillpotts were 
obliged to wear a fur coat at all times during the winter he would 
experience considerable inconvenience when hunting or skating, and 
on five days out of six throughout the season besides. He contrasts 
the conditions of the life of the private horse with those of the trooper, 
and then protests “ most strongly against the tendency to apply the 
test of peace time requirements to military matters and to judge soldier¬ 
ing from a civilian point of view." I fail to perceive the relevancy of 
this protest; we are discussing peace time requirements and the best 
method of keeping horses always fit for service, and to observe in this 
connection that civilians clip horses with satisfactory results is surely 
not judging soldiering from a civilian point of view. He asks how 
9. VOL, XXI. 
