Gibson directory, 1805

Gentleman's Stable Directory \

Of the Publisher of this Volume may be had, the Fifteenth Ed ition (with a Portrait of the Author) of the First Volume, Price 6s. 6d. in boards :

Comprehending every useful instruction for Equestrian ma- , nagement in sickness or in health ; diseases are traced to their origin, and the causes explained ; proper modes of prevention are particularly pointed out, and the direct methods of cure clearly ascertained. Occasional observations are introduced upon the erroneous treatment, and almost obsolete prescrip- tions of Gibson, Bracken, Bartlet, Osmer, and others ; with general directions for buying and selling, feeding, bleeding, purging, and getting into condition, for their various purposes, horses of every denomination. To which are now added, Ap- plicable and Experimental Remarks on the proper treatment of draught horses, the qualifications and dangerous practice of country farriers, and the destructive infatuation of farmers'

Originally suggested by Reason, and confirmed by Prac- tice, equally adapted to the convenience of the Gentleman, the Farmer, the Groom, and the Smith.

Interspersed with such Remarks, and elucidated with such Cases, as evidently tend to ensure the PREVENTION, as well as to ascertain the CURE OF DISEASES.

Illustrated with a plate of Tallin's Pattern Shoes, and a View of his late Equestrian Receptacle.

In one volume octavo, price 5s. boards.

*** Mr. Taplin's Horse Medicines, of which there is a com- plete list in page 503, Vol. I. of the Stable Directory, are to be had of the Author, Sloane Square ; of Peake and Co. 27, Haymarket ; Vades, 46, (pornhill ; Ward, opposite Gray's Inn, Holborn ; Camp, New, and Wade, Old Bond-street ; Watts, opposite Craven street, and Barron, opposite New Church, Strand ; Blunt and Co. Blackman-strcet; and at Hoe's Medicine Warehouse, opposite the Asylum, Lambeth Road.

Gentleman's Stable Directory;

K.Tay lok and Co, Printers, 38, Shoe Lane.

After the many publications upon

equestrian subjects, it may appear to some rather extraordinary that matter either new , instriedtive, or entertaining , can be produced to excite the serious attention even of those who are the most curious in their par- but such admiration will as readily subside, upon a retrospective allusion to the origi- nal motives of the various writers, the almost unlimited extent of the subject, the constantly increasing estimation of the object treated on, and the consignment to

perpetual oblivion of many literary produc- tions, (unfortunately for their authors) so soon as they were brought to the test of public investigation.

The Gentleman's Stable Directory, hav- ing by the unprecedented rapidity of its cir- culation x\\toxl$v fourteen large editions , and the acknowledged utility of its instructions, in a great degree superseded former opi- nions, and established the professional repu- tation of the writer, it will be hardly con- sidered a mark of presumption, that (under the flattering- influence of popularity) the

same pen should once mwe aspire to the hope of applause, in his desire to extend the sy- stem of management to a degree of consist- ency hitherto undescribed by any one of the

numerous authors who have preceded us upon die same or similar subjects.

So far as health and condition are

preferable to disease , so much the more desi- rable must prevention ever prove to the necessity of cure. The purport of the pre- sent undertaking will, therefore, be found appertaining much more to such parts of stabularian discipline, as come under the distinction of novelty, and not treated on in a direct way , than at all applicable to the investigation or cure of disease ; unless in occasional allusions or medical references evidently branching from the subject, and tending to corroborate and improve the in- tentional uniformity of the whole : it be- ing the predominant wish of the writer, to render this publication such kind of colla- teral appendage to The Stable Direc- tory, as may constitute in both , a com- plete chain of useful and entertaining in- struction for the improvement of the spe-

cies ; their management in sickness or healthy the field or stable , including, under distinct heads, such /acta from experience and infe- rences from nature , as -will, the author is

earnestly induced to hope, procure him the

approbation of those, by the sanction of whose extensive patronage he has been already so very highly honoured.

From its general magnitude, prevalent fashion, and great utility, is certainly en- titled to precede every other subject, upon which we shall have occasion to enlarge, in the course of the work before usv ; and will afford ample opportunity to introduce such remarks and instructions, as may evi- dently tend to improve what is now become so universal, that the world at large, either in pleasure , agriculture , or commerce , seem interested in its success. Previous to em- barkation in so extensive a field for investi- gation, it may be applicable to observe, that whatever opinions may be promulgated as matters of recommendation , they are not

to be considered tlie delusive effect of spff* culative rumination, but the result of long personal experience and attentive observation among horses in my own possession, from brood mares and colts to every description, whether for the Turf, Field , Road , or Draft.

Although some of the subjects upon which we proceed to treat, may have been slightly mentioned by writers who have gone before us, it is generally known to have been in so superficial and unconnected a way, that little information or instruction ctftild be at all gleaned from their endeavours ; a few loose hints upon each having been digres- duced, amidst topics to which they did not bear the least allusion, and from whence con- elusions of the smallest utility could never be drawn.

These errors it has been the principal de- sign to correct, by reducing to distinct heads , all such observations and remarks as consti- tute the body of the work, and are intended as incentives to general improvement upon the great variety of subjects we shall en-

deavour to contract into one regular and Uni- form point of view, with as little reference to, or animadversion upon others, as the nature of such publication will admit.

So much lias been said upon the origin, investigation, and cure of disease, in our for- mer volume of The Stable Directory, that we shall advert as little as possible to medi- cal considerations, unless where, from new occasions or recent discoveries, they be- come intimately and unavoidably connected \vith the subject under discussion, as will probably prove the case with some few heads before we arrive at the goal of our

Breeding, though a subject of palpable importance to the improvement of this most useful animal, seems to have received less assistance from literary exertion than any other that has ever attracted the time or attention of those naturalists, who have in other respects contributed largely to the advantage and entertainment of the public.

his. assertion, generally considered, has one striking exception in the peculiar and con-

stantly increasing circumspection, to im- prove (if possible) what absolutely appears to have already reached the very summit of perfection : it will be readily conceived I allude to the almost incredible care and at- tention bestowed upon the breed anu ma- nagement of our blood horses for the turf, at this moment esteemed equal (if not supe- rior) in speed , bottom , and discipline to any other in the known world, particularly since the fashionable rage for Arabians has so gradually declined.

Personal emulation amongst some of the first characters in the three . kingdoms for near a century past (with the most unre- mitting perseverance and practical experi- ence of the subordinate classes, upon the ad- vantageous crosses in blood , bone , shape,make , and strength ,) has rendered Newmarket not only the first seat of Equestrian cele- brity, but, to a breeder and sportsman , one of the most enchanting scenes the universe has to produce. This part of the species hav- ing, under such accumulated power and in- dustry, attained the very pinnacle of pre- eminence, nothing can be introduced to

breeders of such nice distinction, that will possibly add weight or give force to so com- plete a system of unsullied perfection : As

it is, however, generally admitted this syste- matic knowledge is by no means universal, such useful remarks and appertaining ob- servations will be occasionally introduced under this head, as will afford useful intel- ligence or instruction to those who have the qualifications or advantages absolutely requisite for the successful management of a breeding stud.

Taking leave for the present of bloody pedigr.ee , and fashion, we advert to the very capital breed of real English hunters, and beautiful draft or carriage horses, for which the counties of York, Leicester, Lincoln , and Northampton are so deservedly famous ; they are certainly entitled to take the lead of every other county in the kingdom, not more in the care and superiority of their breed, than the consistency of their pro- ceedings to improve it. This preference, so generally known and universally admitted, will create no surprise when we recollect

how admirably gifted by nature those coun- ties are with requisite advantages, that other parts of England have not to boast ; nor can they, from locality of situation, ever obtain.

Situate as the inhabitants arc for these con- veniences, they have consequently dedicated more time and attention to the improvement of the species in general, for the purposes of emolument, than the natives of most other counties, where the attempt (however judiciously made) becomes in some degree abortive, not only in respect to the decep- tive expectation of profit, but a 'certain de- generacy from such heterogeneous unions (if I may be allowed the expression) as will be hereafter more clearly explained.

Customs and opinions upon this subject are both local and numerous, notwithstand- ing which they are frequently subservient to exigence of circumstances, and become pro- ductive of a propagation calculated for little more than a consumption of food, without a single prominent or distinguishing mark of blood, strength, or utility.

There are many substantial reasons to be adduced, why the breeders of the northern counties exceed all other parts of England, in the consistency, strength, fashion, and sym- metry of their stock ; for, exclusive of their natural advantages of the most luxuriant pasture and temperate climate for such pur- pose, they are rigidly attentive to every component minutiae of the whole, not only to the shape, make, bone, strength, and uni- formity of both sire and dam, but likewise to hereditary defects, blemishes, and defor- mities, rejectihg every probability of stain or injury, divested of the paltry penurious con- siderations by which the conduct of many are regulated, who have been breeding all their lives, without the satisfaction of having ever once had a horse or mare of figure, fashion, or value in their possession.

This is a fact so clearly established, it will come home to the remembrance of every reader, when taking- a mental survey of his rural neighbours, amongst whom he will perfectly recollect some one or more so invin- cibly attached to the merits of a blind stal- lion, or the virtues of his own spider-legged

mare, that, destitute of judgment, and deaf to remonstrance, he ranks in [in imagination) the produce a prodigy even in embryo , and proceeds regularly, year after year, increasing the number, without a single addition to the improvement of the species.

These are the kind of hypotheticalbreeders, (and great plenty there are) who calcu- late doubly in error, by calculating upon profit , without a single contingent reflection upon loss ; ridiculously supposing a mare in foal, or after delivery, can support her own frame, and that of her offspring, upon less food than any other horse or mare in constant work ; and begin breeding under an idea that it will be attended with little or no expense. Thus totally inadequate (or indifferent) to the generating of flesh, blood , and bone by the ef- fect of nutrition, they penuriously and inhu- manly adopt a kind of temporary poverty, and after a year or two of artificial famine seem greatly surprised that air and exercise alone have not produced a colt or filly, of equal size, strength , and perfection with those who have omitted no one expense or necessary acquisition that could in the least contribute

to the formation of points so very desirable, in objects of such tedious expectation, and no little anxiety, before their merits or de- ficiencies could be at all satisfactorily ascer- tained. To avoid the accusation or even suspicion of intentional repetition, the unin- formed reader is referred for an investiga- tion of nutriment , its process and effects, to Vol. I. of the Stable Directory, under the article of feeding , surfeit , and mange , where he may collect every information he can possibly require upon the subject.

Those who succeed best, and render the business of breeding a matter of emolument, are evidently gentlemen , graziers , or farmers, who adhere closely to the plan of producing a distinct stock for either the turf field , or. draft , by a direct systematic union of the rer quisite qualifications in both sire and damy without falling into the erroneous opinion of forming an excellent hunter from a blood horse and cart mare ; with similar changes eternally ringing by those who fall into the egregi°us mistake of expecting that an equal partition of qualities, from both sire and dam, will be so critically blended, as to

constitute a medium exactly between both , when every judicious observer will be ena- bled to corroborate the opinion, that the event frequently proves the error, and de- 'monstrates a palpable degeneracy from even the rcorst of the two.

These are the kinds of connection I have before termed heterogeneous, upon experi- mental conviction, in such propagation ; the natural sluggishness and inactivity of the old English draft horses, whether it be in sire or dam, generally predominates in the off- spring, constituting an object of disappoint- ment where so much improvement was ex- pected by the cross. I believe (without ad- verting to memory) that in a number of years past, I may boldly venture to affirm, I could number at least twenty within the ex- tensive circle of my own acquaintance, who, full of expectation, and certain of success, (in opposition to every persuasion) positive- ly believed they should produce strong boney hunters of figure, fashion, speed, and strength in this way, when Time, the ex- positor of all doubts, has at length reduced the conjecture to 2 certainty : and after wait-

ing four or five years for the fruit of their expectation to attain perfection, the prodigy has been unavoidably doomed to the drudgery of a butcher's tray, or the market cart of some industrious mechanic.

To this description of breeders, who are continually promoting the propagation of the species, without a single consistent idea, or relative consideration to the necessary re- quisites of country and keep , or qualifica- tions of sire and dam , (with an additional prepossession in favour of certain ridiculous crosses) are we indebted for the infinity of horses annually produced in almost every [improper) part of the kingdom, that from want of shape, make, bone, size, and strength are of no proportional value to the expense they have occasioned ; they can pass under no distinct denomination, are applicable to no particular purpose, but become an expen- sive burden to the owners, who, too fre- quently fond of their own production, fix an imaginary value upon their imperfections, and year after year permit them to consume food and fodder that might evidently be appro-

priated to services of much greater public utility and private emolument.

To the constant increase of horses that are of little or no value , may be attributed, in a collateral degree, the alarming advance in almost every necessary of life where the in- digent and necessitous are mostly interested without exception : but as the introduction of minute calculations to demonstrate the fact would be digressing from the subject before us, I shall only refer the attention of the curious reader for a moment, to a com- parative reflection upon the incredible con- sumption of pasturage in summer, and corn with hay in winter, that might through other channels be much more adapted to the pro- motion of a general good.

After the remarks hitherto introduced upon the inconsistency and very fashionable absurdity , of even attempting to breed horses in such parts of the kingdom as are but ill adapted to the purpose, whether from the hilly state of the country, the infertility of the soil, want of luxuriance in the pasture, or many other concomitant obstacles, (totally

unattended to by the parties concerned) it t becomes perfectly applicable, to revert once more to tbe frequent and inconsiderate prac- tice of uniting horses and mares, with every joint hereditary blemish or defect that can render the offspring unpromising ; without a single perfection, or encouraging ray of expectation, to constitute a junction of points, possibly tending in the least to form a produce even tolerably adequate to the par- ticular purpose for which it may be intended, when at a proper age it is brought into use. Such breeders seldom pay the least at- tention to merits, tempers, vices , constitutional blemishes , or hereditary defects of either Sire or dam ; the grand and leading object is to obtain a horse or mare of their " own breed j" in that happy thought alone is to consist their perfection, and in such ex- panded idea is buried every just or relative

Predominant reasons are by no means wanting to elucidate this strange and invin- cible infatuation; for penury in some, abso- lute inadvertency in others, and palpable indolence in the remaining class, affect the

annual increase to a certainty ; the same utf-* accountable prejudice that prompts them to commence breeders, without a consistent qualification in horse or mare , influences them also to reserve a colt of such breed to perform the office of Stallion, in the vicinity of their own residence, that the absurdity begun by themselves may be per- severed in by others : this prodigy, with all his imperfections, is permitted to cover gra- tis, or for a trifling pecuniary consideration to the servant (as a complete gratification of the owner's ambition in breeding) ; and, proving a local convenience, is readily em- braced by the inactive classes before described, while others of more prudence, spirit , emula- tion, oi* consistency of conduct, will rather send a mare fifty miles, and encounter any consequent expense to obtain a horse whose shape, make, bone, strength, and action are calculated to correspond with the dam, promising to produce a colt or filly, adequate in figure and value to the purpose originally intended.

Notwithstanding these necessary precau- tions, the long standing adage of there be-

Big " no one rule without an exception, is sometimes verified ; and this even in the first blood studs in the kingdom, where the strictest attention to every consonant pome is so rigidly persevered in, that the least de- Yiationfrom symmetry, speed, and perfection could hardly be believed, did not the result so clearly demonstrate the frequency of the

Extraordinary as such circumstance may appear, it is certainly true that many of the most capital runners, when they have become stallions, seldom or ever begot a winner, though the mares have been selected with the greatest care as objects of equal perfec- tion. These remain among the abstruse re- cesses of nature, that will, perhaps, ever continue unexplained ; we may therefore patiently adopt a supposition as a substitute for discovery, presuming, " so far shall ye go and no farther," is all that can be ad- vanced in elucidation of such a subject.

In corroboration of this well-authen- ticated assertion, great numbers might be particularized of the present day, where the

progeny have degenerated in almost every point from sire and dam; but the rapid sue* cession of one capital horse upon another* (season after season) would render the names of such as might now be mentioned , a matter of oblivion to future readers, and prove to them little or nothing of an opinion we wish to establish beyond the power of con-

So much chance appertains to the act of breeding for the Turf, that one lucky get very frequently constitutes a Stallion of Fashion, to which the rage of future sea- sons becomes incredibly subservient ; innu- merable instances might be quoted in proof of this sporting credulity, but we will con- tract the number to such only as are too eminent in their stock ever to be forgotten, so long as the pedigrees of " great, great, great, great, great grand dams and grand- sires" shall be transmitted to posterity.

It is now within the memory of hun- dreds upon the turf, that old Marsh (a most capital runner of his time) covered in Wind- sor Forest and its neighbourhood, a very great number of mares so low as half a

guinea each, but upon the production of Eclipse, (a horse whose almost unprece- in all probability never be forgotten) his price was enhanced to fifty guineas, and that only for a certain number in the season, out of which (though much advanced in years) he produced many winners, when the selection of mares became so much in

Such fluctuation of popularity still de- pends upon the uncertainty of events, an additional proof of which deserves to be recorded as worthy the attention of sports- men, to whom it is not very generally known, though too well authenticated to admit even a shadow of doubt, and reduces to a certainty the former observation, that Chance alone is often entitled to the merit so constantly attributed to judgment and penetration.

The dam of Eclipse having been covered in that season by both Shakespeare and Marsk, it remained a matter of doubt for some days with his late Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland and his stud groom,

to which the colt should be ascribed ; how- ever, the time of the mare's bringing forth (during the great Eclipse) coining nearest to the day she was booked to have been covered by Marsh, to him was attributed the distinguished honour of getting one of the first horses in the known world ; whose strength, power, and speed were so great, that he with ease double distanced the most capital horses when running with twelve stone for the king's plate, and afterwards walked over most of the king's plate courses in the king- dom. The doubt respecting his sire hav- ing been thus removed, with at least an apparent degree of precision, it may natu- rally be supposed to have been decided with the strictest justice ! but had such doubt still existed upon his own pedigree, the superiority of his qualifications would have appeared in his produce, he having proved the sire of a most wonderful progeny in Mercury , Meteor , Soldier, Gunpowder, King Fergus, Dungannon, Bowdrow , Ju- piter, Vertumnus, and many others too nu- merous to recite, whose blood (in so great a variety of branches) will no doubt be

continued with fashionable crosses to the end of time.

It ishardlypossible for one little acquainted with the customs and manners of the turf to conceive, how the decision of a single match or sweepstakes alters the properties and value of a stallion, whose reputation is placed (in blood and performance) upon the summit of eminence ; for should some of the first of his get that start fortunately become winners, such circumstance instantly enhances his superiority to a degree of enthusiasm, and more business being marked out for him in the act of procreation than nature is equal to, his number of mares are consequently limited, and he becomes im- mediately an object of great annual emolu- ment, several instances having occurred in the last twenty years where different stal- lions have produced to their owners five-and- twenty hundred pounds in one season.

But in this state of acknowledged ex- cellence and superiority, they are still sub- ject to the versatility of chance, and one " unlucky step for ever damns their fame

for two or three of his get being beat at a subsequent Newmarket meeting, the vic- torious sire soon supersedes the favourite, who falling into the back ground of the picture, glides imperceptibly to an almost total oblivion. In such fluctuation or suc- cession submits the fate of an Ilerocl to an Eclipse, an Evergreen to a Sweet jrietfy and a very long list of etceteras to those reign- ing favourites of the present day, Highflyer and I food pecker ; the former of which hav- ing produced thirty-nine winners of ninety- one capital prizes, and the latter seventeen winners of fifty-four, both in the year 1789 only, it will create no surprise that they at present enjoy, under the sunshine of popular influence, a more extensive and beautiful seraglio than any Arabian on earth has ever had to boast. ,i

Having ventured a few remarks upon what I before termed exceptions to general rules, or predominant opinions, it becomes perfectly consistent to strengthen a belief of such possibilities, by the recital of a direct contrast within my own knowledge, and perfect remembrance, of a galloway that

never exceeded thirteen hands, though got by lilnrsk , (who was a large horse) out of a full-sized hackney mare in the neighbour- hood of Windsor ; as well as a very large, bony, handsome, useful gelding full fifteen hands, out of a pom/ - mare under twelve, that was bought of a troop of gipsies near Basingstoke for a single guinea. An in- creased list of such instances might be easily formed and equally authenticated; but these are sufficient to encounter the assertions of those who seem firmly to believe the im- practicability of obtaining bone , size , or strength , but from horses and mares of such size and bone only ; and although it is cer- tainly right to admit the probability of de- viation from sire and dam in such cases, vet the minute investigation of causes must lead us into a field of physical reasoning, and anatomical disquisition, that wouldprove in general reading too remote and extensive for the subject before us.

There are, however, very just and fail- reasons to be adduced, why these contrasts so frequently occur in opposition to the es- tablished notions of breeding, without at all

- adverting to an abstruse animadversion upon the " animalculae in semine masculino," the probable expansion or contraction of the uterus, the act of generation, the crisis of conception, the formation and growth of the foetus in embryo, with other relative considerations that might very well bear serious and scientific investigation, were we at all inclined to perplex , by the introduction of conjectures calculated to promote the learned lucubrations of a certain society, but little to entertain the members of a spotting club at Newmarket, or to improve the different gradations of their numerous

The uncertainty of all human expectations being therefore universally admitted, and such matters of opinion only passed over as can never be brought to the decisive test of infallibility ; it is natural to conclude (notwithstanding such casual deviations) much more may be expected in the produce, from a direct coincidence of parts with an union of strength shape, and symmetry, than from any improper or convenient connection founded only upon the local situation of sire

, and dam, without a single reference to their fections, or hereditary taints, of which many may be frequently discovered by care and the necessary circumspection.

After the introduction of such remarks as evidently tend to constitute the necessary- apology for, and prelude to the undertaking, it will be naturally expected I should revert to instructions that become immediately worthy the attention of every young and inexperienced breeder, who feels a desire to excel in his stock from the motive of emulation, amusement, or emolument. It has been before hinted, that those succeed best for either who propagate the different kinds according to the distinct species of each, whether for the Turf, Field or Draft , without descending to the adoption of crosses in themselves erroneous and seldom

In the present enormous price given for horses of every denomination (universally said and believed to be occasioned by the constant and unprecedented exportation of

our most valuable. English breed) it is almost difficult to decide, which class contributes most to the profit of the breeder. I can- not, however, in my own opinion, hesitate a moment to pronounce the preference to have fallen upon those that turn the soonest into specie : of these, for instance, are the best bred blood stock , now in the highest and most incredible state of cultivation ; the common marketable prices of these, if of the first pedigrees, and brought to a promis- ing size when yearlings, are one hundred and fifty guineas for colts, and one hundred for fillies , at which they pass current, provided they are crossed in blood from any of the stallions whose celebrity we have before had occasion to mention.

Without enlarging upon this sort of sport- ing speculation, I shall only observe, that under certain regulations and very nice di- stinction, with great care and unremitting at- tention, this may prove a much more profit- able mode of breeding for those who* wish to ascertain a fixed emolument, (without hazarding the loss of a certainty in breaking , training , racing, $c.) as is the prudent

practice of the most eminent dealer in the kingdom, who is annually accumulating a very considerable fortune by the constant transfer of equestrian property in its in- fancy, rather than encounter the incredible expense and anxiety of a stud in training, the glorious uncertainty of the turf, the un- bounded insolence of the necessary depen- dents, and the immaculate purity of those to whom your honour and property must be eventually intrusted, as will be more fully explained when the subject comes again under consideration, towards the conclusion of the work.

Concluding, therefore, this class 'of breed- ers to derive the greatest pecuniary advan- tage from their increase of stock, by con- verting it expeditiously into cash with so little trouble, expense, and inconvenience, it is not matter of surprise that the rage for blood and pedigree should be daily increas- ing, (and likely to continue so) though the palpable effect of " training on and training off" annually dissipates and reduces to humiliating indigence .some of the most

princely fortunes in this and the neighbouring

kingdom of Ireland, where the thirst for equestrian pre-eminence is equal , if not superior to our own.

The breed of horses most profitable to the graziers and breeders of Lincoln, Leicester, Northampton, and some few other counties adapted by nature to the purpose, are pro- bably the old English black draft horses, so remarkable for their bone, strength', and hardiness of constitution : these, from their great size, beauty, and uniformity, become to every curious observer, objects of singular attraction ; their wonderful power in business renders them in general request, and the breed is cultivated with the strictest atten- ' tion to corresponding points and perfections in both sire and dam, little inferior to the class last treated on. Stalli6ns of emi- nence in the above counties are estimated at very considerable sums, and frequently let oilt to cover from one hundred to two hun- dred guineas for the season ; the stock gene- rally comes into gentle use at two years old, or under, and when brought to a good size in proper time, frequently fetch from thirty to fifty guineas at two and three years old.

Those horses passing under the denomi- nation of hunters, but more particularly the common crosses for roadsters and hacks, can by no means prove so generally profitable, when all contingencies are taken into consi- deration ; the length of time they are obliged to be kept on hand and maintained, (till at least four years old) with the unfavourable changes they may probably undergo before they can be brought to the ultimate market of emolument most applicable to their dif- ferent qualifications, render the whole a matter of much greater uncertainty than with horses of the preceding description ; for the unavoidable difficulties of cutting, breaking, backing, docking and nicking, render them serious operations, the success of which a chance of misfortune or failure to injure the subject and affect his value.

Notwithstanding these considerations are intended for general application, it must be remembered they will ever remain subject to the different degrees of success, arising from the variety of circumstances already explain- ed. Counties, as I have before remarked,

differ so very much in their situation and fertility for breeding, that many will not produce horses of size, and the desirable qualifications, at even treble their real value , when brought to the very highest market for disposal: for it is a fact indisputably certain, that nothing but a part of the king- d6m remarkable for the abundance and lux- uriance of its herbage, can ever produce stock of size and value to render breeding a matter of emolument ; the attempt, there- fore, in unfavourable situations, must ever recoil upon the adventurer with additional

These observations, so immediately rela- tive to the idea of profit and loss, are by no means introduced to restrain or deter those from the practice, who are so unavoidably ^ circumstanced in situation , as to breed under such disadvantage from the motives of amuse- ment onh y, where pecuniary compensation is no way concerned or expected ; it is, how- ever, to be presumed, that occasional refe- rences to the instructions hereafter incul- cated upon an extensive scale for the im- provement of stock in general (without again

adverting to the superiority that one part of the country enjoys over another) may con- tribute more to a gratification of their wishes than to pay an implicit obedience to the effect of chance unassisted by any personal effort " to better the example."

Previous to further discussion of the sub- ject before us, it is worthy admiration in how many ways the animal production of the temperate region we enjoy has been en- abled to demonstrate its individual excel- lence over a similar part of the creation, when transported from any other part of the globe. This remark might be justified by a very slight comparative view of the different animals, whose abilities or power (according to their distinct qualifications) have been purposely placed in competition with others to prove the inferiority ; one, however, comes immediately applicable to our pre- sent design. Attempts have been repeatedly made by very strenuous advocates of the first eminence and property, to improve the breed of our own nation by the elaborate in- troduction and cross of the most celebrated Ar a b i a ns, carefully selected under impor-

tant commissions, where expense and trouble proved only inferior considerations : but the trial afforded by time, and experience by ob- servation, have fully shown, the improbabi- lity of adding to the perfections of the true English blood horses by the importation of

This rage for improvement with a cross from the blood of Arabia, was near half a century past very fashionably predominant ; but has so gradually declined for the last twenty years, that they are held in no kind of estimation by any systematic sportsman or breeder in the kingdom. The original ad- vantage expected in the cross, was some ad- dition in speed , even to our fleetest mares ; this, when obtained, was totally counteracted by a want of bottom , for, after repeated trial#, the most exact and disinterested, they were found incapable of keeping their rate , fpr much more than a mile, and consequently became of so little consequence to a racing stud , that a short time will, in all probabi- lity, render them of no other utility than to constitute part of the retinue in the trium- phant return of an English Nabob , or an ad-

dition to the ostrich , porcupine , and rhi- noceros, of some eccentric collector of curio-

Bracken has introduced a few judicious remarks upon the subject of breeding, but in his usual way so perpetually interspersed with inapplicable stories and strange con- clusions, that you are dragged through forty or fifty pages of extraneous and digressive matter to be informed, that " Spanking Roger belonging to the late Sir Edmund Bacon, was a round barrelled horse " that Mr. William Penry cured his stammering patients of that defect in speech by purging that " a mare belonging to Mr. T. Makin, of Prescot, in Lancashire, run with her fore feet as wide as a barn door ; yet she ran as fast as most of her size, which was all owing to bringing in her haunches quick, for " they must needs go when the devil drives 5" that w an old woman can cure a wound as well as a surgeon that " physicians may, from their ignorance, be considered a set of vile pickpockets , almost as numerous as the caterpillars of the law that " he who sails with a bad wind had need understand tacking about with a great number of

curious remarks , equally sublime, and as highly applicable to the subject he was treating on ; upon which he has introduced no new matter in any direct chain of con- nection, tending at all to enlighten the topic or improve the management, having lite- rally taken up the business by way of amuse- ment, and laid it down precisely where he found it.

We might here, with great seeming pro- priety, introduce a long list* of instructions, containing the shape, make, bone, strength, with all the variety of points necessary (or at least likely,) in horse and mare, to consti- tute a progeny of promising perfections ; but those requisites are so extensively and accurately described between the twelfth and twentieth pages of The Gentleman's Stable Directory, Vol. I. and must be so nicely implanted in the mind and memory of almost every sportsman or breeder, that a repetition here might be candidly deemed entirely superfluous, and consequently ren- der us subject to an accusation we wish most attentively to avoid.

Such descriptions of points and qualifi-

cations standing therefore not only incon- troverted, but in possession of general ac- quiescence, to those pages the juvenile or inexperienced inquirer is referred for any additional information he may wish to ob- tain ; this reference being justified only upon the natural presumption, that there will be very few purchasers of the present work, but what are holders of the first Volume of the Stable Directory likewise.

Having there so extensively shown what are the requisites desirable to obtain, we now proceed to explain what the defects are most necessary to be discovered in either sire or dam, that the possible retention of heredi- tary faults , defects , or deformities , may be the better avoided ; for although it remains, and in all probability ever will, a matter of am- biguity why an unblemished horse and mare may produce a colt or filly full of disease or deformity , it by no means follows that a dis- eased or deformed sire or dam are equally likely to produce a progeny of perfection. This being, unequivocally admitted, (as by every impartial investigator of nature it cer- tainly must be) it will undoubtedly prove

an act of consistency to evade so palpable a chance of disappointment, by forming an union of propriety apparently calculated (from every external appearance) to transmit such original purity to their produce.

To effect this, the mare having been ob- tained corresponding in size, frame, bone, and strength, with the wish of thr breeder, and found upon accurate examination to be perfectly free from the blemishes and defects so frequently mentioned, the choice of a stallion becomes the object of serious atten- tion; in him should be accumulated all the points and good qualities it is possible for a single object to ppssess, upon a proof exceed- ing all speculation, .(and this every observant naturalist will allow) that the produce, whe- ther male or female, much more frequently acquires and retains the shape, make, marks, and disposition of the sire than the dam ; and although such assertion may not obtain im- mediate credit with many, yet rigid observa- tion has long since demonstrated the fact, and justifies the great consistency of rejecting stallions with the least appearance of disease, blemish, or bodily defect, indicating even the

slightest probability of transmission to the

Supposing a neighbouring stallion , and such there generally is in every part of the kingdom, to have great recommendation in his favour, as to the matter of common in- quiry and fashionable figure, it is still ne- cessary to descend to the minutiae of sym- metry in head , neck, shoulder, forehand, ribs, a strict uniformity in the shape, make, and texture of the very hoofs, and were it possible (which in almost every case it certainly is not) even to ascertain the temper and dispo- sition of both sire and dam, rather than be accessary to a procreation of vices or imper- fections, that by a more judicious election may be so easily avoided.

After all that can possibly be written (and if it were probable that all could be universally read) upon this subject, every reader possessing the power of free agency has still the privilege to reject any opinion not perfectly coincident with the plan he may have adopted, and to enjoy the uncon-

trolled right of persevering in his own de- cision ; but presuming on the task I have undertaken, I conscientiously recommend a proper examination to discover the state of the wind, .spavins, curbs , tendency to cracks or grease, bad conformation of the feet, as corns, thrush, or long and narrow heeled hoofs, either of all which would furnish sufficient foundation to prejudice me against him as a sire, however well I might be pleased with his other most promising perfections.

These casual blemishes or hereditary de- fects being carefully avoided, we come to an inquiry of much greater consequence, the in- attention to which has been productive of more disappointment and vexatioii to the before-describedclassof unthinking breeders,, than perhaps any other part of their incon- sistency. Opposite opinions will always be the support of two distinct classes,//^ right and the wrong ; for while one party asserts (from experience and observation) the great ha- zard, and certain danger of breeding from a blind stallion, the other, from innate obsti- nacy or affected superiority of penetration, is determined to encounter such indiscretion

upon the heroic basis of " the more danger the more honour," and in the event repent- antly discover the want of knowledge and prudence in themselves, they so exultingly presume to arraign in doubting the' judg- ment of others.

The introduction of new opinions as mere matter of speculation is a communication of just as much as amounts to nothing ; such J conjectures, without the show of reason to -establish an apparent discovery of the proof , would be gaining no ground in the estimation of public opinion, nor laying any j ust claim to credit for the responsibility of our asser- tions. Luckily, however, for the support of the subject before us, accumulated proofs are by no means wanting even (within the pale of my own personal experience and convic- tion) to counteract opposite opinions, whe- ther imbibed from prejudice, obstinacy, or

Adverting again to what I so lately admit- ted, the possibility of sound sires and mares producing adefectivc progeny; and vice versa , that blind stallions may sometimes get colts

with good eyes ; yet the chance, or rather imprudence, of breeding from such had much better be avoided ; as the incontrover- tible evidence I shall introduce, upon the folly of embarking ill such an expedition, (where the odds are entirely against the ad- venturer, without a single point in his favour) must prove exactly similar to playing at hazard with false dice , where you may eter- nally lose, but never can rise a winner.

It is likely these considerations may want proper weight with those who supply a con- temptuous smile of disbelief at the very idea of transmitting hereditary blemishes or de- fects from sire to son, as the result of cynical opposition to the more rational system they adopt, of annually breeding under every pos- sible disadvantage, in confirmation of their

inexperience: I shall therefore recommend to their incredulity a few instances, confirming as facts what may have been hitherto con- sidered matters of doubt, without the least criterion for general decision.

The first opportunity I could avail myself of to justify or render nugatory my opinion ot

the impropriety and danger of breeding from horses of this description, was in the year mares in that neighbourhood had been co- vered by a very popular " blind stallion ," (for that was really the appellation under which he passed) of the RIon. T. King's, near Ripley, in Surrey, whose pedigree, shape, make, figure, and qualifications, were so effectually fascinating with the multitude, that the wane of eyes did not seem at all to impede the daily progress of his procreation. The infection of fashion was then (and ever will be) as predominant as at present ; for the slaves to that gcu-gazo continued to bring their mares in unremitting rotation, and never discovered their own want of sight 9 or common comprehension, till the third or fourth year, when the major part of the pro- duce became as blind as the sire.

Still anxious to ascertain to some state of certainty, an object of so much consequence (not only to the sporting people, but the world at large) as the hereditary transmission of this delect, I was constantly upon the watch to enlarge my inquiries to some de-

gree of satisfaction; I remained, however, without any thing perfectly conclusive till the spring of the year 1780, when a grey horse called Jerry Sneak (that had proved a tolerable runner, in the possession of -Lord Spencer Hamilton) coming into my hands upon very easy terms just as his eyes were failing, I covered a few mares gratis , with him in the neighbourhood of Frimley , near Bag shot, which having made memo- randum of, with a design to purchase any of the produce that appeared tolerably promis- ing, and making my excursion through the different parishes to obtain from the parties the necessary information, I found in the fourth year many of the produce totally blind, and the remainder nearly so without excep-

Facts (it is universally admitted) are stub- born things, and to the establishment of this fact I have been anxiously labouring as to the acquisition of individual emolu- ment, though I have ever considered it a promotionof general good, in which the com- munity is so much interested, that it would be an absolute want of philanthropy to con-

ceal whatever could in the least tend to an additional discovery upon the subject.

It is not the purport of the present work (nor is it at all applicable to the purpose) to enter into physical researches, leading the reader through a long chain of philo- sophical disquisition upon Lewenhoeck's microscopic iuvestigation of the animalcula contained in the semen of animals, founding upon such inquiry a thousand conjectures respecting this abstruse process of nature, that may very much perplex the mind, but can neither tend to entertain or improve the

Of as little consequence or advantage it must certainly prove, to attempt any exact decision by what nice and undiscovered ope- ration in the animal system, a horse is ren- dered first partial!!/, then totally Blind by too frequent or hard racing ; as well as the very common occurrence of a stallion's becoming equally so by too constant and repeated cover- 'ing, though the act itself is a spontaneous effort of nature.

However difficult it may be to furnish an. opinion applicable to every idea , I believe with the scientific investigator there need be little scruple to hazard a professional descrip- tion, by what means so serious a revolution in the frame is effected; for the brain being the very basis of the nervous system, and the nerves the acknowledged seat of pain and pleasure , any exquisite or preternatural ex- treme in either may be productive of great debilitation, andthe optic 7/cn;eA'being nearest the origin , may become more sensibly affec- ted in a paralytic or some other degree, than any subsequent part, and the sight gradually decline from a partial vision to total blindness.

For the honour of human nature, I can but most earnestly wish the applicable intro- duction of these remarks may induce die par- ties interested in the event, to be in future a little less strenuous in their different exer- tions, whether for credit or emolument; the first, never to distress one of the noblest ani- mals on earth, by those frequent and severe runnings thatevidentlyexhaust nature to such a state of mortification; or the latter, in the truly contemptible method of letdng a horse

cover such an infinity of mares, as not un- commonly terminates* in the irretrievable loss of his eyes, but the inevitable loss of his reputation also as " a certain foal-getter for the great number of mares covered by him without produce, brings his character the following season into disrepute, should even the state of his bodily strength, constitution, or chance, preserve his eyes from the great probability of annihilation : this remark ap- pertaining only to the owners of stallions who attend the markets of different towns every day in the week during the whole season, exclusive of the additional portion of busi- ness in their own neighbourhood on the Sun- dap morning.

Of these there are so great a number, and in their performance so general a failure, that it is absolutely wonderful how so many can become dupes to the customary infatuation, of leading a mare to any market town, to be served by a horse who is continually covering from four dr five, to eight or ten mares in every twenty-four hours during the season ; with the additional consideration, that these extra exertions are most frequently

made under ' the corrupt influence of to the purpose, and supposed to act with the same excitement as cantharides upon the human body. Incredible as it may appear, to those whose situation in life has rendered them little subject to discoveries of this kind, I have been repeatedly called upon in my professional department, to dispense large quantities of this very article to many of those who travel the country with stallions of such denomination ; first obtaining from them a communication of the use it was in- tended for before they were intrusted with it, upon an experimental conviction of its danger ; having in the course of my private medical practice known one life lost, and- another miraculously saved, where it had been given under the denomination of love pot'der for the unfair gratification of the

worst of purposes.

Without entering again upon the act of generation, the semen, or animalcula con- tained in it, as before adverted to, can any intelligent reader, to whose deliberate atten- tion these pages may become subject, be at

all surprised, that in such a constrained and prostituted state of nature, so few of her attempts should be productive of success ? . . . Elcre we might be readily induced to enter another large field for scientific disquisition ; but as it would evidently extend not only be- yond the present purpose, but prove " cavi'ar to the multitude our inferior class of readers might occasionally exclaim with Mungo in the Padlock, "What signify me read , if me 'no understand /"

Avoiding, therefore, the indifference in general shown to remote medical explanation, and dull anatomical descriptive, I come directly to a question founded in reason, upon the merits of which the interested part of the world will be enabled to decide, at least so far as corresponds with their own opinions upon the subject. Can it be possibly be- lieved or expected (but by the most illiterate, who in fact possess the gross comforts of life on/y, and never enjoy the sublime gratification of thinking,) that horses thus eternally jaded and harassed, not only with the diurnal routine of copulation, but the - incessant fatigue of travelling perpetually, can be at all

equal to the Herculean task assigned them ? Can it be matter of surprise, that not more than one-third, or, upon a more favourable computation, one half at most , of the mares covered in this way produce a colt,- and that the half of those so produced, never come to a proper size, bone, or strength ? Then can there remain a doubt in the mind of any unprejudiced man living, but to these causes may be attributed some portion of that defi- ciency so generally complained of, and too frequently attributed to the want of hone in sire or dam ?

Having hitherto introduced what I con- ceive to be the leading qualifications in horse and mare to render the business of breed- ing pleasant and advantageous, we come next to consider the season most proper for bring- ing them together : as it must be admitted, an inconvenience will certainly arise to the mare by foaling too early in the spring, or to the produce by falling too late in the summer, it will undoubtedly prove more eligible to adhere a little to the line of me- diocrity, letting either extreme be carefully

Nevertheless, it must be understood, this circumstance can by no means be altogether universal, as it depends in some measure upon the country and situation : the pasturage being of different states in different counties, and dependent upon the fertility of soil as well as the temperature of climate, the sea- son is consequently forwarder, at least the herbage, (by a fortnight or three weeks) in one part of the kingdom than another,: - a circumstance that should always be properly attended to by the parties concerned.

It will therefore prove perfectly consistent in all counties, however they may be situated, to have the produce and pasture appearing at the same time as nearly as fluctuating or unavoidable circumstances will allow ; for when mares are permitted to take the horse too soon in the season, they bring forth be- fore there is sufficient grass for their support, and being necessarily assisted with dry food, the Jacteals, (or milk vessels) for want of gi adual supply and expansion, become con- tracted ; the very sharp winds early in the spring, with a restraint in food, sometimes so stint the colt, (particularly should a

wet unfavourable summer and severe winter follow) that he never reaches a proper size in growth, but displays the disadvantage of his earliest state when arrived at maturity.

It is no uncommon thing in different parts of the country, to observe mares that have dropped their foals early, (before there is a blade of grass for their support) placed in a rick yard, where by incessantly tugging out a scanti/ tiring , it is ridiculously believed both mare and colt are indulging most luxu- riously, though the direct contrary is really the case : hay may undoubtedly, if admi- nistered in due supplies, contribute a suffi- ciency of support for the mare, but is no(t calculated to yield, even in almost constant mastication, any great nutritious superflux for the subsistence and desirable improve- ment of the colt. As there is a very great difference in the nutritive qualities of food, so there is a very material difference in the milk it produces : indifferent or sparing ali- ment will certainly produce a thin aqueous impoverished milk, of quality and in quan- tity to sustain and barely subsist nature, but by no means to give it strength , vigour ,

growth, or the formation of flesh and hone so generally desirable.

However hastily some part of the world may be inclined to decide, (as every observer has a right to indulge his own opinion) there can be no doubt but to the inconsiderate practice of inadvertently leaving mares and colts to subsist upon bare land , or barren pastures, for the first summer, and a succes- , sive scene of poverty in the ensuing winter, are we in some degree indebted for a propor- tion of those horses I have before described,

as coining under no denomination, applicable to no particular purpose, never rising to any considerable worth, and doing so little credit to the breeder, that you can never discover (if you were so inclined) from whence they came, after they are once out of his posses-

In this mistaken notion and ridiculous sy- stem of breeding fails every penurious and mercenary breeder, who, prompted by his own narrowness of disposition, affects to be- lieve, there is little or no difference between , filling and feeding, considering a run after Vol. II, E the

the com as good as a run with them ; that chaff is a much more profitable and healthy food than oats , and that an open farm-yard, with a - crib of barley or oat straw, during the severe frost and snow of a long dreary winter, are preferable to all other accommo- dations of food and shelter, as (to make use of his own justification) they are then in the most proper state, " a state of nature." - These are the persuasive motives assigned also by those strenuous advocates for general im- provement, who barely subsist their mare& during the tedious months of gestation, un- der an idea perfectly coincident with the principles just described, that a mare after having been covered, requires but " little or no keep" as (with such contemptible specu- lators) the act itself is ridiculously supposed to make the mare fat. This is the invariable opinion among the less enlightened class of rustics : and though the act and its conse- quence may be justly said to make the mare big, yet the original remark is certainly too ludicrous for serious consideration.

After the necessary introduction of such observations as are evidently connected with-,

&nd branch directly from the subject,- we re- turn to the time best adapted by nature and the season to the foaling of the mare. A few words having been already interposed upon the inconvenience of dropping her foal too early , something- consequently appertains to its falling too late ; this should never happen when the year is too far advanced, as the produke then has to encounter hourly increas- ing difficulties : the daily declination of the genial sun, the decaying state of the verdure, the impending rains, bleak winds, long nights, foggy days, and the lank weak grass, form so strong a combination against im- provement, (particularly if the winter should prove an additional stroke of severity) that the colt frequently feels the disadvantage, and constantly displays it by the deficiencies in frame and figure, as before described.

Taking however the variation of different counties into the aggregate, to fix a criterion ot time applicable to all parts, I shall not hesitate a moment to pronounce the last week in Apiil, and the three first in May, the most proper months in the year for mares to take the horse, provided it can be by any means

effected ; to promote which the following methods should be adopted : it is generally perceptible when a mare is horsing , and it is likewise universally known she will then take the horse without further trouble; mutual con- sent therefore renders animadversion unneces- sary; but should the mare, uponbeingbrought to the horse, not make any shezi\ on the contrary, give proofs of denial by repeated kicking and other violent exertions, let her (after sufficient trials ) be taken away, and some addition be made to her keep ; give her a substantial feed of good oats and a pint of old beans twice a day, continuing to offer her the horse once in three days till a compliance is effected.

After which it will be necessary to offer her the horse at the expiration of eight days (that is, on the ninth) from the day of her having been covered ; if she again take the horse (which is not at all uncommon) you reckon from the last time of covering, upon a supposition no conception took place from the first copulation, and that it is consequent- ly obliterated. On the contrary, should she, after repeated offers , persevere in rejecting the

horse, the first covering is then supposed to have been effectual ; notwithstanding which, the mare, in cither case, is to be produced and tried with the horse at the end of a second eight days, when circumstances must be re- gulated as at the end of the first, entirely by her compliance or rejection.

Sentiments have varied exceedingly upon the little probability of a mare conceiving when the act of copulation has been forcibly committed without the least external display of desire, and in opposition to the most vio- lent exertions of the mare. However my opinion might have originally fluctuated with the various representations of others upon this subject, I availed myself of an early oppor- tunity to ascertain the fact, and remove any doubts that may have arisen within my own mind, although the recital will not perhaps render a repetition of the trial equally success- ful in the opinion of others ; yet I have been since repeatedly informed, the experiment is very frequently made, and not without its share of success.

In the year 1773, (residing then at Hor-

sel, near Chobham, in Surrey) I intended covering two mares by Woodcock y half-bro- ther to Eclipse, who then remainedat Eg- ham, for the season ; one of the mares took the horse, without reluctance, the other re- jected hint with the greatest violence : at the

expiration of time before mentioned, they

n were again offered the horse, and hoik refused.

- On the ninth day I made the same jour- ney with the same success, and then con- cluded the mare that had been covered to be perfectly safe: determined, however, to make no more journeys of uncertainty upon the business, I asked To w ns he nd, the owner of the horse, if he had any objection to let the horse cover the mare compulsively, upon condition she was so completely trammeled as not to injure the horse ? This being readily agreed to on his part, and the mare strongly hobbled , the horse was brought out; and be- ing luckily very fresh, full of vigour, and eager as she was reluctant, the leap was ob- tained with, much less difficulty than could be possibly expected : at the end of the eight days I again attended with the mare, and found she rejected the horse with more inveteracy than in any of my former journeys.

I now made up my mind to take no more trouble in the business, but leave the rest to chance : in a very few months she was visi-> bly in foal ; and produced me an exceeding handsome colt, that I disposed of at a high price to a gentleman in Norfolk, when rising two years old.

This circumstance I have related, to esta-< blish by proof the consistency of adopting die alternative , when the season is so far advanced as to hazard the loss of the year by longer delay : for my own part, (and it is clear I speak experimentally) I should never hesitate to cover a mare in this way, if she continued to refuse the horse till the last week in Mai/y or the first week in June , much rather chusing to ravish the mask of delicacy from her disposition, than lose her contribu- tion to the stock for that year, or have a colt fall six weeks or two months too late in the

It will become perfectly applicable here to introduce a few words respecting the exact pe- riod of gestation in mares, upon which I never lemember to have heard or read any thing

dictatorially decisive, more than the general assertion of their going eleven months (or the common witticism, that " a hare and a mare go a twelvemonth ;") but whether it is un- derstood eleven lunar or calendar months, I believe has never been critically explained (at least generally known) : and this is in fact the more extraordinary, when we recollect that eleven calendar months make within two days of twelve of the other ; nor indeed are there but few instances in which the know- ledge of such nice distinction can be pro- ductive of much utility ; yet it creates some surprise that it has not been particularly noticed by successive naturalists, as circum- stances have arisen and may sometimes hap- pen, where such precision would effectually remove a doubt or establish a fact.

A want of early attention to a discovery of this minutia was attended with a trifling loss to me some years since in my first breeding embarkation, when in possession of much less observation and experience ; for, having ob- tained the loan of a strong bony mare from a friend inWindsorGreat Park, for the purpose of breeding, I had her covered by a large,

powerful horse then in the neighbourhood, and booked the leap according to custom.; but having made no calculation of the calendar months, I kept her eleven lunar months and a fortnight (by the almanack), and not per- ceiving her to spring in the udder , or grow larger in the carcase, I returned her (after taking the opinion of almost every farmer and breeder in the country), upon an univer- sal decision that " she had no foal within her." The ultimate event proved for once the error of general judgment ; for the owner (Mr. Johnson, then one of the keepers of the Great Park) taking a morning's walk among his stock, found her with a fine colt at her foot in about ten days after her return, which proved a valuable horse to him at five years old, that I had lost entirely by my inadver- tency and impatience.

The mare having taken the horse but onve , and that under my own eye (a trust I never delegated to another), added to the strictest attention in point of time, formed a com- bination to give proof, that a mare carries her young twelve lunar or eleven calendar

months (which accurately taken are just the same); or that the exact given time varies in different subjects, and is so regulated by age or constitution, that there has yet been no criterion fixed for a nice distinction. The matter, however, if at all entitled to consi- deration, may be most easily reduced to a certainty, by any gentleman having a variety of brood mares in his possession, who will note those who have taken the horse but once in the season, and take the trouble to book the day of their bringing forth ; when, by comparing the whole, the exact time of ges- tation will be nearly demonstrated, where no second covering has intervened to render the decision imperfect.

The treatment of mares after being co- vered is regulated entirely by the class to which they belong ; for, having twice refused the horse at the periods of time before stated, they are then said to be stinted, and conclu- ded in foal. But this is by no means always the case, for it frequently happens that such mares produce no foals, although appear- ances are so much in their favour. Thorough bred mares (that is, mares whose blood

is entirely untainted with any inferior ci oss, and kept as brood mares for the turf only) are thrown out to grass for the summer sea- son without further consideration ; only tak- ing particular care that no geldings, or year- ling colts, are suffered to accompany them in or near the same pasture, for some few weeks after conception.

Mares of an inferior description in gene- ral arse for the saddle, or those for agricul- ture, may be continued in their common em- ployment with moderation ; they seldom suf- fer abortion but by great and improper exer- tions ; they are therefore very frequently used till within a few weeks of dropping their bur- then, without the least fear of inconvenience. This is a fact so universally established, that instances have repeatedly happened of mares obtaining stolen leaps when out at pasture, without the knowledge and very much against the inclination of the owners : this circum- stance, from various motives, has been con- sidered so prejudicial, where breeding has not been intended, that different and powerful methods have been adopted, as the admini- stration of savinc in large quantities, violent

exertions in drawing, or long and very speedy journeys taken to promote abortion, and those without the least effect; to corrobo- rate which, the introduction of one only be- comes at all necessary, as it is too well autheiv ticated to admit a doubt of its certainty.

Some few years since, Sulphur, a well- known running horse of the Duke of Cum- berland's, having leaped the paddock paling, of an immense height, in Windsor Park, co- vered a hunting mare of Mr. Jephs's (then resident at Sandpit Gate) in the sight of many labourers, who reported the occur- rence. As the hunting season approached she was perceptibly in foal : this was what he by no means wished, and was so much hurt at the awkwardness of the circumstance, that he continued to hunt her incessantly, cover- ing the strongest leaps and taking the deepest ground to obtain abortion.

The event, however, sufficiently proved the folly ( not to add cruelty or presumption) of opposing nature in her nicest operations ; for all the severity so inconsiderately put in prac- tice, never in the least hurt the mare, or de-

bilitated the fcetus : at her proper time she produced a foal, that (to render the circum- stance more remarkable) at five years old won the fifty pound plate annually given for the keepers and yeomen prickers to be run for over Ascot.

This invincible stamen, or hardiness of constitution so worthy recital in this instance, is not (let it be understood) so entirely gene- ral as to be applicable to all the class without exception ; it therefore becomes perfectly in point to introduce a case in direct contrast, that may be likewise productive of utility, in preventing too great exertions withTnares in such state, under a firm opinion that the loss is less likely to happen than it really is and actually may.

Having about seven years since purchased of the breederat Horton in Buckinghamshire , afour year old mare, got by Bell's Denmark , I observed to him (during the negotiation for purchase) that from the depth of her car- case and hollowness of the flank, she was cer- tainly early in foal ; on the contrary, he as- sured me, positively, no horse had ever been

near her, and that it was merely the effect of lying at grass. This mare, though so young, was a very excellent trotter; and having soon after occasion to take a professional journey with some expedition (the road being ex- ceedingly good), I made observation by my watch that she trotted the seven miles in five- and-thirty minutes, without the least seem- ing inconvenience ; but on the morning fol- lowing I found she had slipped a colt foal very perfect, of about three months' concep- tion, though no extraordinary exertions were, used on the occasion.

The recital of cases so exactly in point lays claim to the attention of breeders in general, as they undoubtedly constitute a basis in ex- perience, upon which the judgment may be discretionally formed at what time it will be proper to discontinue the working of such mares, when it is clearly ascertained how slight a portion of labour may endanger the dam, and prove destructive to the progeny.

Thenccessary qualifications for procreation , in both sire and dam having been fully inves- tigated, and the blemishes, defects, and local

contingencies, that tend to forbid the attempt

fairly explained, we now come to the crisis of delivery, or the mare's bringing forth; an event so wonderfully accomplished by the al- most unerring efforts of Nature, that upon

the fairest calculation, not one mare in a hundred suffers in any respect, more than the temporary disquietude from an exertion of so much magnitude, although in the mo- ments of reflection it absolutely becomes a matter of admiration how the shock is sus- tained, without a much greater frequency ' of the danger that so seldom ensues.

Notwithstanding this providential inter- position for the safety of animals so little enabled to relieve themselves, it is worthy re- mark, that where difficulty and danger once occur, the case becoming preternatural, it generally terminates in the death of one or the other, and not uncommonly in the de- struction of both : this may probably pro- ceed from the.construction of parts not being generally understood, and the little chance of assisting nature with the same ease and accuracy as some other parts of the crea-

A loss of this description, after a year or more of tedious hope and expectation, con- sequently produces temporary gloom and se-* rious disappointment ; in some instances the dam becomes the victim, in others the foal ; to the latter there is no palliative, to the for- mer but one alternative; it is a custom almost universal, upon the death of the mare (soon after relief from her burthen) to despair of success in raising the foal by art, and it is frequently disposed of without delay, that a circumstance so unlucky may be the sooner erased from memory and buried in oblivion.

This hasty decision is by no means to be commended, although it is almost generally known the power of instinct is so very pre- dominant in this species, that it must be a fact exceedingly rare, to find a mare that will, by whatever stratagem you can put in force, cherish any other foal than her own : this most undoubtedly arises from their seldom or never producing a plurality of young at one time ; a circumstance by no means uncommon with almost every other animal in the crea- tion, who are the more easily imposed upon to nourish and protect a spurious offspring.

The general despondency before mention- ed, respecting the survivor, is not to be justified where the foal is of value adequate to the trouble 5 nor indeed to be neglected upon the score of humanity , when unremit- ting industry and perseverance can so readily furnish an artificial substitute for maternal care and nutrition. It may be naturally con- cluded I allude to the great probability (and in some cases certainty) of bringing the foal up by hand ; a remarkable instance of which becomes immediately applicable, in the per- fect recollection of a horse bred by his late Royal Highness William Duke of Cumber- land, that at his death became the property of the celebrated Captain OKelly, and in the successive possession of both, for a series of years, won more give-and-take plates than any other horse in the kingdom.

The fact was exactly thus : the colt being the first foal of a young mare that had been taken into the brood stud without training, upon the* produce of which his Royal High- ness had formed great expectations, it proved matter of much surprise and disappointment (being totally repugnant to the reciprocal af-

fection in nature) that, &o soon as the colt had fallen, the mare absolutely took fright at her own offspring, and never could be once brought to the least association with it what- ever. Every stratagem that could be devised was put into practice under the immediate inspection of his Royal Highness, to effect a natural union between the dam and her foal, but without the least probability of success : those fruitless efforts were therefore relin- quished, and alternate attempts made to ren- der the abandoned orphan a son of adoption with different mares in rotation, but with no prospect even of hope. In this dilemma the Duke, whose humanity in matters of much greater importance will stand recorded to the end of time, fully intent upon preserving the colt if possible (with a- declared presenti- ment of his future eminence), determined upon hi3 being brought up by hand1 if possi- ble, without a relative consideration to trou- ble or expense, and issued his orders accord- ingly. The event justified the endeavour, and the success of the undertaking was trans- mitted to posterity by the Royal Sponsor, with the name of the horse ; for under the appellation e-f Milksop, his very capital per-

formances may be found in the " Racing Calendar ," so long as it shall retain a place in the sporting libraries.

Circumstances of this kind happen, how- ever, so very rarely, that instructions respect- ing casualties remote and unlikely, might be deemed superfluous, did not a vindication immediately arise from the exulting consola- tion of knowing by what means to encounter such difficulties whenever they Occur.

Returning therefore to the act of foaling, which, as before observed, generally happens without the least danger or difficulty, and nine times out of ten in the night, it be- comes the business of the owner or super- intendant, to dispose the tnare in such place of safety, that mischief is at least not likely to ensue ; artd this caution may prove the more acceptable, when it is recollected by every breeder, sportsman, or resident in the Country, how very common it is in the sea- son to hear of foals being smothered in a ditch, or drowned in a rivulet, to the possibi- tity °f zc'ldch, the attention of the inadvertent

owner had never been even for a moment directed. It is likewise by no means in- applicable to observe, that for some days pre- vious to the expected foaling of the mare, she should be kept in rather a sparing than plen- tiful situation, to prevent a too great reple- tion of the intestines and consequent com- pression upon the uterus, producing extreme pain, difficulty, and delay in the delivery, which might otherwise never occur.

The mare having (as is generally the case) been freed from her burthen without in- convenience, and no circumstance arising to forbid it, let her be immediately removed to a healthy and luxuriant pasture, calculated to furnish not only a sufficiency of support for her own frame, but affording a superflux for the substantial and nutritious support of her young. In this a proper discrimina- tion is absolutely necessary ; lank, swampy, sour grass will certainly expand the frame, subsist the dam, and contribute a flow of milk for the foal, but not of that rich and luxurious quality that is derived from feed- ing itpon the succulent herbage of maiden

meadow, or upland grass in high perfection - both firhich contribute so very much to the daily growth and improvement of the colt, drat it is a matter of the utmost consequence to the breeder, whose principal object should be to attain every possible advantage in height, hone, and condition, previous to the commencement of severe weather, during which growth is in general suspended, unless liberally promoted by the salutary interpo- sition of good food, and proper shelter to encounter the inclemency of the season.

This is the first step to be taken where no disagreeable traits intervene to require a different mode of treatment ; but should the mare (by foaling before her time, or in se- vere sharp winds, a cold wet night, long and painful delivery, or other circumstances too abstruse to be discovered) visibly labour un- der jived dejection , bodily languor, loss of appetite , lying down as if painfully weary, and totally inattentive to the infantile fond- ness of her foal - it may be justly presumed, nature has sustained a severe shock from some one of the causes just recited, that can- not be too soon attended to and counter-

acted, for the prevention of more distressing

Fate is in general rapidly decisive in cases of this complexion, therefore delay (under any pretence whatever) may prove not only dangerous but destructive ; the mare uppn such discovery should be immediately re- moved, with her foal, to a still and com-? fortable situation, as a large qpen stable, close cow-house, or bay pf a barn, where she should be expeditiously supplied with such articles as invigorate the system, in- crease the circulation, and recruit exhausted nature. About a gallon of water made warm and impregnated with a portion of bran, or oatmeal, may be directly given to allay the thirst, which pain, fatigue, or disquie- tude never fail to excite, as well as to form a kind of substitute during the preparation of a plentiful mash of malt, oats, and bran, equal parts, into which should be stirred six ounces of hpney : this being given to the mare, of consistent warmth, will not only gently stimulate the debilitated powers, and gradually assist the strength, but pro- mote an early flow of milk for the grati-

fication of the expectant foal, which is al- ways in some degree obstructed, if not to- tally suppressed, by the least indisposition of the dam.

The mash may be repeated twice every day, with plenty of the best hay, and oc- casional supplies of the water before men- tioned, till her recovery is sufficiently esta- blished, and the weather proportionably calm for her enlargement, in the way above described, had no difficulty intervened. Should the same lassitude and dejection con- tinue more than four-and-twenty hours after these methods have been adopted, bring into immediate use a dozen of the cordial pectoral balls from " The Gentle- man's Stable Directory, Vol. I." and let one be given every night and morning in its prepared state, or dissolved in half a pint of gruel, and administered as a drink, or in- corporated with each mash at the stated periods, till the whole are taken ; continu- ing the aids of mashes , warm water , nurs~ 'ing, and clothing , (if symptoms of great cold appear) till every appearance of com-

plaint is' removed, and nature perfectly re-

Some mares, whether from a rigidity of the vessels in not having their first foals till an advanced age, slight colds that obstruct the secretions, or whatever cause unassigned, are very deficient in a necessary flow of milk, by which means the foal is deprived of perhaps half the sustenance necessary for his support and expected' improvement : this is a matter well worthy minute inspection for the first three or four days after foaling, by which time the food should be perfectly assimilated, the iacteals expanded, and an ample secre- tion furnished for thejatl feed of the foal. This not being the case, such deficiency should be very early discovered, and a§ eagerly assisted when known.

The richest and most luxuriant pasture that can be obtained, with good soft water at will, is the first and best natural step to remove such obstruction in its infancy : that , upon observation, not succeeding in the de- sired degree, and the colt becoming percep-

tibly stinted , (which may be plainly per- ceived not only by his external appearance, but incessant attempts to obtain supplies without success) artificial means must be adopted to solicit a clue discharge of this very necessary fluid, without which every expec- tation of the foal's growth and gradual im- provement must be rendered abortive.

This object can only be accomplished by enlarging the mode and increasing the means of conveying a larger portion of more nutri- tious aliment into the system : from the ge- neral diffusion of which the lymphatics and lacteals become proportionably distended, and are consequently enabled to secrete and discharge a much greater quantity than na- ture in her more reluctant state seems in- clined to bestow.

This systematic process of nature may, to the less enlightened reader, seem matter of so much ambiguity, that somewhat more in explanation may be probably required ; but as abstruse reasoning and physical definition (it has been before said) are not the purpose of the present publication, every irrelative

matter will be carefully avoided that can tend to perplex the mind or embarrass the judgment. It would, therefore, be deviating widely from the plan originally formed for the accommodation of general comprehen- sion, were we, by unnecessary introduction, to enter into the very extensive field of ana- tomical structure and animal mechanism, demonstrating physically by what admirable means the excrementitious part of aliment is ejected from the stomach and conveyed through the intestinal canal, when divested of its more subtle and nutritious properties ; which being totally absorbed by an infinity pf vessels in the very work of digesdon, is carried into the circulation, and there consti- tutes, by its different secretions, the source of life and support ; from which systematic transformation is derived that formation of bloqd, that gradual enlargement of flesh and bone, only to be explained by much literary information on one side, and understood by no small portion of medical knowledge on the other.

It will consequently suffice to say, that the reader, whose mind is more enlarged,

whose views are more extensive, and who cannot reconcile his opinion or found his judgment upon the quality of aliment , the process of digestion, or the effect of nutrition , by what has been concisely introduced upon those subjects, must derive more substan- tial assistance from the variety of excellent professional publications more particularly adapted to such investigation and inquiry ; as the majority of those who do me the ho-r nour of occasional inspection, will certainly expect, under the head we now write upon, to find much more matter of amusement and rural instruction than scientific disquh

Declining, therefore, a matter of so much extent, and so little applicable to die present purpose, we naturally revert to the state of the mare, and the means of enlarging the powers ; from which alone, the foal is to receive not only a sufficiency of nutriment for bare subsistence, but an absolute abun- dance or superflux for the promotion of ad- vantages we have so particularly explained. The deficiency before mentioned having been

attentively ascertained, and excellent pasture with good water not being found to increase the flow of milk so much as is evidently re- quired, an addition of more substantial and nutritive food must be associated with what has been always considered the first and most natural aliment for equestrian improvement.

All rules, however established, are perpe- tually liable to some exception, and nature is not uncommonly assisted, or counteracted, by ways and means the very least expected ; for every constitution will not be acted upon in the same manner either in the human or Jarute creation. In fact, daily experience with the human species affords ample proof, that the same articles in physic or food shall act in a direct contrary way, and produce a very different effect upon one habit to what it shall in another : a circumstance so generally known and admitted, w^ould fur- nish sufficient latitude for conjecture respect- ing the animal we now treat of, were proof really wanting to establish such opinion ; which is by no meaas the case, as numerous instances might be quoted to corroborate a

variety of similar contrasts, were they at all necessary, to confirm a belief of what in re- ality there cannot be the least doubt of.

Convinced, therefore, of such facts, it is but a natural inference to conclude, the best, or indeed pasture of any kind, may not be so equally conducive to the improvement and Condition of all immediately after foal-

ing, but that it may act as a powerful re- storative upon one, while it relaxes and de- bilitates the system of another ; particularly where, from a vitiated or diseased state of the stomach and intestines, it passes so rapidly and indigested through the body, as to de- posit but little of either essence -or substance for the subsistence of the frame or support of the foal.

This is undoubtedly one of the predomi- nant causes of the defect, and should be counteracted by such means as are calculated s ' to strengthen the digestive powers, animate the circulation, and diffuse a" plentiful sup- ply of chyle to preserve the necessary secre- tions, without which a healthy and im- proving state is not to be expected. To

effect this, give a warm mash every mofft- ing, composed of brown malt three quarts* and one of cracked oatmeal, (commonly called grits) let the water be poured on-boil- ing hot, and repeatedly stirred up till of a proper warmth, when it may be given in either field or stable, unless any severity of weather should render the latter most eligi- ble. In the evening of each day, give half a gallon 'of good sound mealy oats, with the addition of a pint of old beans, either whole or split, as will be most readily taken by the subject for whom kthey are intended : these feeds, exclusive of their great nutritive pro- perty, will powerfully assist in retaining the aliment in the stomach by their restringent quality, thereby contributing largely to the general purport of the whole.

This plan should be persevered in for six days without intermission, when an in- creased supply of milk from the mare may be earnestly expected ; but should that im- provement not become perceptible, she may be reasonably deemed a very poor n urse , and no other extraordinary means be attempted to assist the imperfection ; but care must be

taken to wean the foal very early in the ensuing winter, (as will be hereafter ex- plained) upon a well justified presumption, that at the autumnal declination of grass, her slender portion of support for the foal will disappear also-

How far it may be consistent, at least prudent, to breed a second time from mares whose powers are evidently deficient in fur- nishing such portion of milk as is abso- lutely necessary to stamp the attempt with success, must be left entirely to the decision of the parties interested in the event ; some of whom I have before observed are, from different motives, too much attached to undeserving favourites ever to suffer their opinions to be warped by any consideration or remonstrance whatever. For my own part, I feel justified by personal experience and attentive observation, in again making public declaration, that in so serious and expensive a business as breeding for either the turf, field, road, or draft, no blind pre-:. judice or infatuating prepossession should in- fluence me to persevere in the practice with

against me in either horse or mare ; and I

have not the least shadow of doubt remain - ing, but those who confidently make the experiment will have sufficient reason to re- pent the hazard of the undertaking.

Returning now to the successful foaling of the brood mare, properly adapted to a com tinuation of breeding, we revert to the ac- customed method of soon taking her again to horse : upon which a variety of opinions have been transmitted from sire to son, and re-echoed from one generation to another. It has been the invariable practice with some, to offer the mare a horse on the fourth day after foaling, to insure " the greater chance of immediate conception with others, " to promote an increased How of milk and an established opinion, " that the horse will be more readily taken at that time than at any

future part of the season."

These are opinions iii themselves so per- fectly inoffensive, and of so little conse- quence, that they require not the least ani-

madversion ; on the contrary, are left open to the judgment of every reader, upon the con- sistency of which, he may determine as most coincident with his own wish, or the practice of the place he lives in. As it is my invaria- ble plan not to enlarge upon points that are unnecessary, or start obstacles and condemn customs that can be attended with no palpa- ble prejudice, I shall only introduce some slight remarks as occur, without obtruding any thing dictatorially decisive to affect or discourage the local customs of others.

To prevent, however, such inconvenience as may probably arise from too hasty a de- termination, let it be taken into- considera- tion, that by having the mare covered so very soon after foaling, you bring her (should such covering be productive) full three weeks or a month sooner the next season than the year preceding ; and should that have been only in proper season, (viz. the latter end of April or beginning of May) you encounter the probability of much inconvenience ; for, this calculation remaining unattended to, youi produce may fall early in the month of Maich, not only under the disadvantage of

bleak winds and frigid showers, but before there is a single blade of exuberant pasture to subsist the dam, or encourage the growth of twelve months tedious expectation.

From what has been so lately and re- peatedly urged, respecting the properties of different kinds of aliment, and its effect upon the animal system, little more can be required to prove, that whenever a necessity absolutely exists for subsisting the mare en- tirely upon <lrji food) the secretion of milk must be inevitably reduced, and the im- provement of the foal proportionably ob- structed. Taking this, then, as a matter universally admitted, and, in fact, what no man living will attempt to disprove, we may naturally conclude no rational investi- gator of truth and consistency will ever deviate so much from the line of his own interest, as to promote the propagation of what must, at the time of its birth, be in a great degree deprived of its most natural means of existence ; a deficiency not in his power to supply by any adequate substitute

Relinquishing, therefore, so extravagant an idea, we proceed to the time most natural for bringing the mare to the horse after her foaling, if she is intended to continue her services as a brood mare, and to be managed accordingly. The time most applicable in one respect, may not prove always the most convenient in another, as it should be re- gulated, if possible, to avoid the before-men- tioned extremes of the foal falling too early or late in the season. Most mares will take the horse on either the ninth , fifteenth , twenty-first , or twenty-seventh day after foal- ing ; of these, neither will occasion any great variation in the time of her foaling the next season, though I should adhere to either of the two Inst , unless the mare had foaled late in the year, when th q first or second should certainly be preferred. After which cover- ing, or refusal of the horse, she should con- tinue to be tried at the stated periods so particularly specified in the earlier part of the work ; always concluding the mare to be stinted, and in a state of conception, when she has repeatedly declined the horse in the manner there described.

Before we take leave of this part of our subject, it comes directly in point to offer a few words upon the almost universal prac- tice of continuing to breed year after year, from the same mare, till nature, over-driven, thwarts the attempt by the occasional in- troduction of a barren year, in direct oppo- sition to the intent of the breeder, demon- strating ujion compulsion the necessity of what he did not intend to comprehend by

The very means by which the embryo is generated, and the nutriment required, not only to support its growth during the months of gestation, but the subsequent term of its suction , evidently point out the consistency of some portion of rest or respite for the dam, to acquire additional strength, after the incessant labour of continually collecting a double portion of food to subsist herself and support her offspring.

The fashionable and predominant plea of attachment to interest and self-preservation, will render deaf to this remonstrance num- bers, who, " unwilling to lose the year,"

and incapable of imbibing instruction from the nicest laws of nature, will be regulated implicitly by the dictates of their own mer- cenary sensations ; affecting to believe, that the mare, producing a foul every year, will continue her stock equally strong, healthy, and valuable, with those that are favoured with occasional and necessary intermissions. This is not the fact ; attentive observation, accurate estimate, and impartial decision, will clearly prove such succession to degenerate in bone, size, strength, and value, when pro- duced from the same mare for a series of years without the least cessation ; while, on the contrary, a single gear s fallow in every three or four, will, upon comparison criti- cally made, prove in the aggregate decidedly in favour of the breeder.

Having gone regularly through every branch of information at all appertaining to the propagation and preservation of stock, we now come to the time and manner of weaning ; a matter that must ever be regu- lated much more by the circumstances of the case than the state of the season, depending

in a great degree upon the conditions we pro- ceed to explain. Considerations upon this subject are so unavoidably complex, and de- pend so much upon contingencies, that a nicety of discrimination is upon all occasions necessary how to proceed in the business before us.

The difference of a mare foaling early or late in the season ; her remaining fallow, or having taken the horse and renewed her conception ; the forward growth and rapid improvement, or puny and backward state of the foal, are all conditional matters upon which variations are to be formed. For instance, where the mare has dropped her foal early in the season, has again taken the horse, and the foal at her foot has improved properly, and acquired the desired strength and size previous to the commencement of severe weather ; such foal should be taken from the dam so soon as the decay of1 pas- ture perceptibly occasions a reduction in the supply of milk ; and this separation becomes the more immediately necessaryupon an esta- blished truth, that the longer a foal is permitted

to oppress nature, by a compulsive secretion and evacuation of milk from a mare again advanced in foal, the more will the subject in embryo be consequently impoverished and restrained, when deprived of its portion of nutriment, then converted through another channel, and appropriated to a different use. This incontrovertible system of the animal ceconomy must be- so evidently clear to the most uncultivated comprehension, (accusr tomed to dedicate but little attention to the slightest indications of nature) ' that it be- comes matter of admiration how so absurd a practice can ever be supported upon the basis of inadvertency ; when it would be rendering nature accessary to a perversion of her owi} laws, even to suppose it was ever intended, that any animal existing should longer subsist or prey upon the very vitals of its dam, when the frame was again advancing in pregnancy with another.

From this necessary allusion to a practice that is not only exceedingly common and too little attended to, but is also prejudi- cial to the subjects themselves in a greater

degree than generally understood, (merely for want of a little scientific reflection upon, the properties of food and its different ef- fects) we come to a case apposite in itself, that must be regulated accordingly ; as, where the mare has foaled late in the year,

and has not been again put to horse, or where the retarded and unpromising state of the foal renders extra care and nursing ab- solutely necessary ; in either of which, every encouragement should be given to pro- mote the strength and growth of the foal, during the inclemency of the winter season, which, it should be remembered, he is not nearly so well enabled to encounter, as those of a greater age possessing the advantages be- fore described. In such instances as these, although the flow of milk from the dam will be very considerably checked by the al- teration of food dependent upon the different seasons, yet with frequent supplies of good hay to the mare, it may be proportionally assisted, and with occasional aids of proper food to the foal, great advantages may be derived from letting them run together through the severest months of the winter j

to evade the ill effects of which, nocturnal shelter will very much contribute.

Notwithstanding every possible informa- tion that can be introduced, such variety of cases may occur, with so great a complication of circumstances, that no literary description, however diffuse, can prove completely ade- quate to every idea upon the subject ; condi- tional instructions must always become sub- servient to the discriminating judgment of the owner or superintendant, upon whose fa- vourable opinion or prejudice, caprice or compliance , will depend the effect of the whole ; and to such precarious decision alone must the writer ultimately submit the consis- tency and execution of his directions, though he were to produce an immaculate volume upon the subject.

Conscious, however, of the compulsive necessity for such dependence, and the diver- the variety of circumstances that may occur, no particular zccek or month can be invaria- bly fi xed for weaning ; as some of the con-

tingencies before mentioned may render it unavoidably necessary in the earliest month of the winter, or protract it to the latest in the spring ; which must, after all that can be offered in print, depend entirely upon the discretion and interest of the parties more immediately concerned.

Waving, for those reasons, farther ani- madversion respecting the time, we advert to the manner of effecting a change, sometimes attended with difficulty, but seldom or never with danger, particularly when regulated by due attention to circumstances, season , state, and condition ; considerations that never es- cape the eye of vigilance, and generally en- sure their own reward. Towards the con- clusion of the year, the foal acquires, by in- stinct and observation, some relish for pas- ture, but unluckily begins to enjoy it just at its autumnal declination, when long dreary nights, damp fogs, and frequent rains have succeeded the enlivening rays of the genial sun, depriving it of its former substance and vernal sweetness ; at this critical pe- riod all nature undergoes a visible alteration,

and the change is as severe in its effects upon the animal as the vegetative part of the world.

In this general revolution, the expected and former nutriment from the dam becomes not only reduced in quantity , but impaired in quality : divested in a great degree of its balsamic and nourishing property, it wisely points out to the foal the feeling necessity of an adequate substitute for such defi- ciency; under so predominant a sensation as hunger , he readily submits to an alteration in the means of subsistence, and in a few days becomes perfectly reconciled to the food allotted him, provided it is applicable to the state of his infancy, good in its kind, and properly selected to gratify the calls of

Of these there are various kinds, that have each their different advocates, whether in oats , bran , chaff , barley , wheat, hay, or straw, and each advocate loaded with reasons ' of the first importance and self-consequence, (regulated perhaps by pecuniary sensation) to justify the opinion he has formed : but as

it is by no means the purpose to lead our rea- ders through a dull and tedious labyrinth of perplexities, without a glimmering of either utility or information, we shall endeavour to ascertain the preference without animadvert- ing upon the judgment and opinion of others, wishing, upon the basis of truth and con- sistency, only to establish the criterion of our

It has been generally said of Oats (al- though the universally established food for horses) that they are dangerous to foals at the time of weaning , under an idea of the optic nerves being so violently affected by the strength required in mastication, as to occa- sion future disease, debilitation, and some- times loss of the eyes : as this is, however, a matter that can never be reduced to cer- tainty, but must always remain dependent upon conjecture, without even the possibility of proof, it may be perfectly applicable to the disposition of those who entertain doubts* to adopt the alternative of feeding with the grain or grits onlv first divested of the hulls, as in the shell or husk such difficulty must be resident, and not in the meal.

Bran may have its occasional use, when called in aid of other aliment , but is en- titled to little or no estimation on the score of nutriment , being, like the different kinds of straw or cha[}\ evidently calculated more to amuse the appetite and expand the frame than subsist the body. Barley, (particu- into malt) as well as Wheat, commands the priority of invigpration with almost every part of the creation ; for, whether the expe- riment be made on man, beast , or the more inferior classes of fowl or vermin ^ it becomes every way conspicuous. The great salubrity and nutritive property of sound, fragrant, well-made Meadow and Clover Hay are too universally known to require a single line upon their excellence.

In addition to these, most of which are in constant use, may be introduced two articles equally applicable, though not in such ge- neral request : they are, nevertheless, in the highest estimation with those who have proved their utility, and stand entitled to the warmest recommendation. First, the

pulse , passing under tlie denomination of Horse Beans, which from their great sub- stance, adhesive quality, and known invigo- rating power, are justly supposed to convey a greater portion of nutriment to the system than any other corn appropriated to the same use. Admitting this to be really the case, they likewise retain the advantage of being readily adapted to horses of every description, irom infancy to age, and may be given as exigencies require, either in their natural state, whole or split , as is the usual method when given with bran (a feed very common with horses of the lower class of mechanics) or completely ground, (and called bean meal ) for the use of foals or colts, so young that they are incapable of receiving them in any other state.

The other article, whether recommended as a useful winter substitute for the more succulent herbage of the summer, or only as a cheap and additional method of subsist- ence, need only be more generally known to establish its own reputation: whether joined to the accustomed food of draft horses used

in agriculture, colts during those months of the year when the growth of pasture is re- strained, foals when weaning, or in addition to the keep of mares whose foals arc required and permitted to run at the foot all tne win- ter, it is of equal utility, particularly to the latter, whose flow of milk it greatly enlarges if given in sufficient quantities to promote the advantage.

Carrots, the article thus highly com- mended, after fair and impartial trial, is one of the most valuable in the vegetable world, and so easy of cultivation, that in a light sandy soil no crop is supposed to produce a greater share of emolument : of this certain adventurers are so well convinced, that the very labourers in the north- west parts of the county of Surry rent from the neighbour- ing farmers a moiety of even the poorest land upon the verge of the barren heath, at the exorbitant price of three and four pounds per acre for the summer season, only to produce a single crop, when it is immediately resigned to the landlord for his season of wheat to

The largest and handsomest they begin to pull in September and October ; these are very neatly formed into bunches, and con- signed to the London market by the waggon load, at the enormous expense of two gui- neas for the carriage only, which, with the additional trouble and charge of double hoe- ing, pulling , washing , and hunching , gives it the appearance of a very expensive crop : but when it is taken into the calculation, that three sometimes four loads are produced from a single acre, that (according to the season) sell in London from four to six pounds per load, the great advantage becomes palpably striking even to the most indifferent arith- metician. But the emolument ends not here; for, upon the average, no more than two- thirds of the produce are included in the above proportion, as turning out sufficiently handsome for the trade before described ; the remaining proportion, that are short, ill-shaped, and forked, are deemed refuse , and used in the winter by such growers as have stock of their own, or disposed of by those who have none, to their neighbours, at a very moderate price. To the corroboration of

this fact I speak experimentally, having been a consumer among my own stock of four- score bushels in one winter, purchased at only sixpence each bushel, exclusive of a very con- siderable quantity produced from a part of my own land, then under similar cultiva- tion, from a thorough conviction of their utility and profit.

The method to preserve them for the win- ter Consumption is as follows : let them be taken up early in the autumn, so soon as their superficial or Vegetative parts begin to decline, and laid upon a bed of new reheat straw , in a dry room, or close granary, with- out cleaning, just as they are taken out of the ground ; they are then to be plentifully covered with the same bedding, to protect them from long and severe frosts that fre- quently ensue, after being affected by which, they soon decay and become rotten : no fear of this need, nevertheless, be entertained, provided proper care and attention be paid to the bed and covering, as they then continue perfectly sound to the expiration of a very long winter, There is also another equally

effectual method of preservation much in use in the neighbourhood alluded to, by substi- tuting sand for straw, letting them be very substantially covered to exclude the external air : but as that article is not so universal, or to be obtained by any means in many parts of the kingdom, straw must undoubtedly prove most convenient for the purpose.

During the season required for consump- tion, let any quantity be taken from the heap and placed in a mash- or other tub, there co- vered with water from a pump, or pond, as may be most convenient ; when having stood an hour or two, to soften the surrounding earth left on for preservation, they should be well washed with a heath broom for a few minutes, till properly clean ; then pour- ing off the foul water and washing them once more with a pail or two of clean, they will soon become dry enough for the following,,

Let them be cut first longitudinally, then transversely ; or, to make use of a more comprehensible term, (at least rather better

adapted to the rustic fcapacities of those like- ly to become the operators) " athwart and across into small squares about the size of a horse- or tick-bean ; in which state they will be consumed in the winter with the greatest avidity, by any class of horses, mares or colts, either alone or intermixed with chaff* oats, bran, or any other dry food to which they are accustomed.

To remove such doubts as may arise in the minds of those who pass through life in the true mechanical dog-trot of their great grandsires, and who, from their personal pride and innate dulness, never condescendto make an experiment , or sanction an improve- ment when made; I think it necessary to re- peat the fact, that I have with the greatest success introduced this additional article of food to all the different horses in my posses- sion (hunters excepted) during a long, dreary, and severe winter, never remembering to have had them in better health, vigour, and condition. Among these were a team of draft horses in constant employment, not only in agriculture, but occasional hard

work upon the road : growing colts of dif- ferent kinds, as well t as brood mares and foals, who all equally enjoyed a participation of the experiment in every kind of way it could be offered them; tending sufficiently to justify every thing I can presume to offer in recommendation of the practice, more parti- cularly with stock required only in improving condition during the winter, and not destined to any kind of labour.

In this just representation, I beg by no means to have my expressions misconstrued or my meaning perverted, but desire it should be generally understood, I urge their utility in applicable proportions as a cheap auxiliary to other food , without indulging an idea of their being used alone ; as well as to have it held in remembrance, however serviceable and healthy they may have proved, and cer- tainly are to the unemployed part of stock, it was never my intent to declare them ca- pable of constituting the basis of nutrition and support for horses in constant and laborious work. On the contrary, knowing experi- mentally the great expense of breeding, and

how necessary it is to acquire occasional aid from the frequent interpositions ol aboil on) y , I earnestly recommend the culture of them upon that score, (in those parts of the king- dom not so favourably adapted to breeding) as a very useful and profitable associate with other food for brood mares, foals, and grow- ing colts, in severe or long winters, when hay and corn are at an exceeding high price from a general failure in the crop, or an in- different season for the harvest.

From this unavoidable deviation we return to the business of Weaning, a matter that will be in some degree more easily reconciled by permitting the foal to feed with the mare for a few days upon the dry food previous to the entire separation. The question natu- rally and indeed generally arising at this pe- riod, is not, what food is the most salutary for the subject in question ; but, which is the kind of food most applicable to the sen- sations of the owner ? Though, were reason or prudence consulted, that food would be adopted most adequate to the probable value of the foal; for, notwithstanding all that can be urged in the defence of breeding systema-

tically, to produce stock of shape, strength, figure, fashion, hone, or speed, (according to the purposes for which they are designed) there will still remain a more than moderate, who must inevitably continue to propagate stock, not worth the proper support of even the first twelve months, was their intrinsic value to be brought into arbitrative compe- tition with the year's consumption.

No doubt canbe entertained but the sweetest hay, with a daily portion of the hulled oats, and a trifling addition of the bean meal, would be as perfectly grateful to the weaning foal of a Jive powul po7ii/ 77iare as to the palate of a son of Highflyer; but it is natural to con- clude, in the present hourly increasing age of sagacity and penetration, self-interest , with its concomitants, will never be so totally ob- scured, as not to regulate the conduct of the majority, and that mares and colts will in general be supported with a political refer- ence to profit and loss , however some excep- tions (withfavourites of a former description) may produce many a four-year old at the do- mestic expense of thirty forty ,or fifty powids^

whose whole accumulation of points and per- fections will never exceed fve-an d- tzcen t if , when brought to the test of inspection at a public market.

Conscious how many will continue to breed under every disadvantage, and to per- sist under every peculiarity, I shall submit the distinct kind of aliment to be selected^ and the quantity to be regulated, entirely by the judgment, whim, caprice, experiment, or local custom of every individual, upon a per- fect conviction he will justly claim and exert that privilege, in opposition to any opinion or dictation of mine; whose further instruc- tions upon this head might be candidly con- sidered obtrusive, where conditional direc- tions under so many contingencies (as the state of various subjects and temperature of severity of different seasons) must prove to- tally inadequate to general application.

Convinced, however, on the contrary, how very many there are, who, anxious for infor-

mation and open to instruction, possess pa- tience to receive, and judgment to adopt, every species of improvement calculated for.

the promotion of general good ; it is entirely for their accommodation, that I have minutely descended not only to an explanation of the quality of different kinds of food, but repeat- edly to the work of digestion and effect of nutrition, that the very means of growth , strength , and condition may be morerational- ly considered and fundamentally understood.

Presuming on the care taken to inculcate such knowledge, and thoroughly convinced of the advantages that arise from a liberal distribution of provender to stock of every kind upon certain emergencies, I beg to con- clude my observations under this head, with an additional injunction to breeders of every denomination, to endeavour in the two first zt'inters , to acquire all possible advantage in size, strength and bone; which I have be-; fore said, and again assert, depends as much upon the judicious and plentiful supplies of food, as the qualifications of horse and mare, so solely relied upon and eternally echoed by those subordinate cavilists who possess the opinion, but not the means to justify their assertion. For size, strength, and bone being thus constantly promoted by care and atten-

jiion, they not only form the frame for a ready acquisition of flesh in that season of the year when nature dispenses her gifts with a more liberal hand, but being once obtained can never be obliterated; while, on the conr trary, the first opportunity of acquiring those perfections being totally lost by an unfair restraint in sustenance during til 2 first two years , the stock is more or less stint ed, and an irreparable deficiency constituted that can never be supplied in the same subjects , by ei- ther present regret or future repentance.

IT will not come within the limits of this work, or the intention of the writer, to inter-r fere with the operative part of the art, offer- ing a dissertation upon the routine of leading , lunging, backing , riding , mounting , or dis- mounting, with ease, grace, and agility : these are the professional privileges of Breakers alone, from the rustic rough rider of the most obscure village in the country, to the fashion- able and accomplished Menage Master

General of the metropolis. Professing, therefore, no interference with, or attack upon, the principles of the science, I proceed to such allusive remarks and inferences as in- terest not only breeders and sportsmen, but all those who have any immediate intercourse with the species, whether from the motive of attachment, pleasure, health, or business.

The first object for general consideration's the age most proper for bringing into work horses of different descriptions according to their distinct appropriations ; but this, like most other matters, has become subservient to the prevalence of fashion, and in much less than half a century undergone a total revolution. Some years since (and not a great many) colts and fillies were haltered and handled a little at three : turned out

again and completely broke at four ; used mo- derately during their fifth year , and thought to be sufficiently matured for constant work at sit: such system has been, however, gra- dually changing as the value of horses con- tinued to increase, a circumstance that in all probability effected the alteration, by tempt- ing breeders to turn their stock into specie,

with much less trouble, expense, and anxiety, than when kept so long upon hand before they could be taken to market.

This has turned so much to advantage in their annual transfer to the London dealers, who purchase at the famous fairs of Banbury, Northampton, Leicester, Reading, and many others, (exclusive of their extensive agencies in Yorkshire and other distant counties) that they are now broke and sold so soon a? they have obtained size , and undergo the most in- famous practices upon their teeth, to enable the conscientious seller to dispose of two, three, four-year old, for a four, five , or six ; which he frequently does with such assur- ances of truth and integrity , that the cheat is very little likely to be discovered by any sagacity or circumspection whatever.

A similar degree of refinement has been effected upon the turf, as with the more in- ferior classes ; for what has been promoted by interest on one hand, has been extended by the invincible spirit of opposition on the other. It is but a few years since a four year old plate was considered the first public trial

of speed and bottom, between young horses calculated and trained for racing : but horses (as well as women) are, by the great and il- lumined effect of modern penetration, found to be so much forwarder in the natural state pf their constitution, that they are brought into use many years sooner in the present than the past century ; having now not only plates constantly run for by three years old, but frequent matches and sweepstakes with two years old and yearlings,

In this general improvement (if it can be so termed) I believe any observant or experi- enced reader will coincide with me in opinion, and hazard the assertion, that many hundred horses are annually crippled and irrecoverably injured before they arrive at maturity ; that is, before they arrive at a proper age for the work to which they are so frequently most injudiciously destined. In support of this fact, no greater or more indisputable autho- rity need be adduced, than a reference to the infinity of invalids to be daily seen on all the popular roads leading to the metropolis ; but should a stronger proof be required, to meet the opinions of the interested and incredulous,

let it be extracted from tlie visible effect oi the burning cautery, or rotational multiplicity of fired Horses in perpetual liberation from the hands of every eminent operator in the various parts of the kingdom. As this custom is now too far advanced in practice, and too firmly established by interest (at the original source of circulation) to admit of cure or palliation, further animadversion upon its ill effects cannot be productive of either suc- cess or utility : continuing, therefore, our de- termination to avoid remarks extraneous or desultory, we proceed to such practical ob- servations as are more likely to excite general

Of these, none become more entitled to the consideration of horse-breakers and their em- ployers, than the natural disposition and tem- per of the subject they are taking in hand ; for it is a positive fact that more horses have been injured in their tempers and dispositions by the indiscretion, impetuosity, or profes- sional intoxication of those to whose manage- ment they are unavoidably intrusted, than by any other means whatever.

Reason and observation afford evident de-* monstration that horses have their different degrees of sagacity and penetration ; their spon- taneous efforts are all regulated by the most impressive and inherent sensations, dependent upon passions conspicuous as our own ; sub- ject to an equal display of fortitude* fear* joy, grief, courage, timidity, attachment, &nd prejudice, as any of the human species ; and this is so perfectly. known to those who have made nature the object of frequent medita* tion, that they cannot consider the communi- cation a matter of novelty; while those who receive the information tinder an impression of doubt, must, in the moments of reflection* be seriously convinced they have read but lit- tle in the fertile volume of experience.

Upon the most palpable conviction that those passions have a predominant ascendancy over their different subjects, I presume to urge the consistency of rendering the animal obedient to the will, by such methods as are calculated moreto acquire his submission than excite his anger; or, in other words, to ac- complish the business more by gentle means than coercive exertions. The necessity for

earnestly recommending this lenity in the practice, has arisen from innumerable in- stances within my own knowledge of horses rendered invincibly restiff by the dint of per- petual ill usage and unjust opposition; when, from the natural bent of their dispositions, a different mode of treatment would have pro- duced a direct contrary effect.

To this part of the subject I have ever paid the greatest personal attention, and de- clare, with the strictest adherence to truth, I never yet saw a restiff' horse made better by violence and abuse. If any vociferous dis- putant, fond of displaying his courage and exerting his power, feel his innate cruelty in some degree abridged by the intervention of humanity, and arrogantly ask, Whether he is to abandon his purpose, and permit the horse to gain the victory and become his mas- ter?" I answer him with the greatest serenity, " On no account whatever." Such is not the purport of my recommendation ; our intents ar e undoubtedly the same, but to be eventually accomplished by very different means ; I repeatedly urge the propriety of due attention to the various tempers and dis-

dispositions of horses, upon the purest con* viction that the treatment really necessary for a horse of very high courage and almost in* vincible spirit, cannot be consistent or proper for one of extreme timidity ; that one horse may be subdued from any predominant vice, or regulated to any particular action, by a moderate exertion of power, while another

will submit only to a constant display of the greatest tenderness and familiarity. These extremes frequentlyexist in horses of a similar class, value, speed, and qualifications; equally liable to injurious impressions from being

managed in a way directly opposite to the very nature of their dispositions.

A due degree of patient discrimination should be always exerted, to discover the temper of the subject and ascertain the line of distinction ; what may be expected from a steady firmness and persuasive mildness, previous to the too ready exertion of vio- lence, in general very eagerly conceived and maliciously executed. Horses are perfectly conscious of the different treatment they receive, and give the most striking proofs of their attachment or dislike in consequence :

This is a fact but little known amidst the multitude of superficial observers , and metro- politan sportsmen , but incontrovertible with those who survey this animal with the daily eye of exquisite pleasure and admiration.

The equanimity, fortitude, and sobriety , so indispensably necessary for the successful breaking and management of young, restiff, timid, or high-spirited and refractory horses, must be too sensibly felt by every judicious reader, to require the least animadversion upon the advantage of such qualifications ; I shall therefore proceed to a few remarks upon the almost systematic conduct of grooms, breakers, and servants, (to whose care horses of the first estimation are unavoidably in- trusted) who, persisting indiscriminately to effect all their purposes by force, frequently err much more from the very motive that Pope's rustic hero whistled, u want of thought f than any pre-determined spirit of opposition to the rules of consistency and discretion.

It is no uncommon occurrence with con- stant travellers, to perceive one of this de~ hCr iption mounted upon a horse denominated'

restiff, that without any apparent motive (at least perceptible to the rider) by which the cause may be discovered, suddenly stopy retreat , or turn round upon the road, visibly increasing his reluctance to go forward, in proportion to the anger and violent opposi- tion of the rider ; who, too frequently a slave to irascibility, rashly supposes his cou- rage is now put to the test, and becomes im- mediately determined to conquer by violence or lose his life in the attempt. This hasty resolve affords no moment to reflect upon the imperfections of our own nature , the daily inconsistency of our proceedings, or the means by which they are excited or restrained ; a total stranger to the school of philosophy , and little read in the book of refined sensa - tion> he deals about him with whip and spur most unmercifully, till the animal, (with perhaps a disposition directly like his own) revolting still more at the severity 'or inhu- manity of the treatment, becomes outrageous, and by exertions of strength or stratagem, dismounts his rider, or in a retrograde motion deposits him in a ditch , on one side the road or the other. The action is now renewed, between horse and foot in a different way,

the latter attacking the former with the ut- most violence over the head and eyes, erro- neously adopting an Iricism, to bring him forward by driving him back : this perpetual and severe discipline often rouses in the sub- ject a certain kind of habitual callosity to every future intervention of tenderness, and renders him ever after incapable of becom- ing cheerfully obedient to what he considers his most inveterate enemy.

Some horses are also brought to a certain degree of starting, exceedingly dangerous, by a similar and equally improper mode of treat- ment ; for there can be no doubt but horses that are young, or have been but little used, must have some time, patience, care, and at- tention bestow'ed to reconcile them to the strange and numerous objects upon a public road, before they can be expected to ap- proach or pass them without sudden surprise and trouble. Indeed, the great variety and velocity of the different vehicles upon all the populous roads, but particularly round the metropolis, render it a matter of absolute wonder, how such an infinity of the highest mettled horses in the kingdom should be

eternally passing each other in crowds, with- out those dreadful accidents so natural to ex- pect, and fortunately so little heard of.

It is really a matter of concern, that a custon so inconsiderate and absurd should ever have gained ground, as the practice of instantly beating and goading a horse upon his only method of expressing a mo- mentary and natural impulse of fear, at any strange or uncommon object that may come suddenly upon him, or to which he may not have been accustomed : in this, as the former case, a similar degree of se- verity and cruel display of power are ex- erted by the major part of the humane and enlightened class before mentioned; for upon the horse's first starting, whether from fear or dislike, he instantly receives a blow on the head with whip or stick, accom- panied with the very emphatical impres- sion of both spurs, without allowing the poor animal a moment to recover from the first surprise ; this repeated, constitutes a ce- remony we have before explained, and totally destroys the basis of mutual confidence, that should be carefully preserved to insure the

faithful services of one, and the protection of the other.

Great inconveniencies arise from this un- just and severe method of treating horses in general, where from blows indiscriminately dealt in passion, the bones of the head, or the eyes are irreparably injured by the ser- vant, and the real cause never truly known to the master ; several instances having oc- curred within my own knowledge, of exfo- liations from the jaw-bones, (with and with- out a di^lodgement of teeth) some of which I discovered upon inspecting what the owners imagined to be a disease or canker in the mouth, and not till an examination of the bones of others after death ; the greater part or all of which, I have no doubt, were pro- duced by blows with weapons very little cal- culated for rods of correction.

That there can be no doubt of horses sus- taining great injuries by these means, I have every reason to believe, from numbers I have seen fall instantli/ to the ground, upon receiving a blow seemingly slight and of no great force immediately behind the ear :

among those, my memory furnishes me with

instances of two that happened in the public parts of different large towns ; one passion- ately inflicted by a brother of the faculty, the other by a son of the church ; the last of which was almost accompanied with so singular a circumstance, that I cannot resist the temptation of a short digression to re- cite it.

Being a man of very low stature, and engaged to preach, for an absent friend, in an exceeding large church and high pulpit, not a hundred miles from one of our univer- sities, he delivered his text from that part of scripture including the words, " In a little lime you shall see' me, and in a little time you shall not at this moment, the stool upon which he stood, to render himself con- spicuous to the congregation, slipping from under him, rendered him not only instantly invisible , but proved the words of his text to have been selected with the most prophetic

Leaving to the force of imagination the general consternation of his auditors and the

confusion of the preacher, I proceed to his additional mortification in the same town a short time after ; where riding up to the door of his draper upon a favourite horse, and the horse very little used to the hurry of large towns, instantly started at some object within or without, when the little man, in his warmth , giving him a petulant blow upon the head, brought both horse and rider to the ground in the presence of twenty inha- bitants, who having his former dilemma fresh in their memories, it doubly insured him the appendage of " A little time ye shall see me, and a little time ye shall not which honourable distinction will, in all probability, accompany him to the grave, he being at present only in the prime of life.

From such remarks as I thought abso- lutely necessary to expose the cruelty of ill using horses, and demonstrate my invariable opinion, that violence and unjust severity, nine times out of ten, injures their tempers and confirms their vices, I come to such proof as may tend not only to obtain converts to tJiat opinion, but to introduce a justification of my own ; viz. that horses of mild tem-

pel's and pliable dispositions may be brought to every state of perfection by gentle usage corresponding with their own frame of mind; while, on the contrary, the ferocity of the highest-spirited may be gradually subdued by exertions of steady authority and persevering fortitude , blended with intervening acts of kindness and occasional encouragement, without descending to the most unjustifiable ill usage, tending only to excite invincible prejudice and perpetual opposition.

The proofs upon which such opinion is incontrovertibly founded, constitute an expe- rience of twenty years, in which time I have attentively analyzed the tempers of horses, -and the practical principles of their breakers, with as much fervency as the professional * abilities and medical knowledge of Country Farriers , so fully and repeatedly explained in different parts of the former Volume. There is a certain analogy in the practice of both ; and kill or cure may be adopted by each for his motto, without injury to either ; and with much greater propriety than one of the same learned fraternity defined his employer's horse to be "semper eademf Worse and worse ; or

the other, " Vivant Rex, Dead as a door nail, by G-d, Sir." These slips are, however, to ' be charitably considered sublime effusions of fancy, to which men of superior genius are justly intitled, as laudably emerging from vulgar explanation, and sublimely soaring beyond the limits of common comprehension.

Experience is, upon the foundation of the antient adage, universally said " to make fools zvise." To a little of that salutary ex- perience I acknowledge myself indebted; and am not ashamed to confess, that in the very early part of life I became a temporary slave to custom, and credulously bestowed my premium of three guineas, exclusive of the keep, to have a colt rendered every thing that zcas bad , by the most popular distri- butor of equestrian discipline in the neigh- bourhood of my residence : when, after an absence of six weeks, the time fixed on ne- cessary to complete his education, and render him a paragon of perfection, he was re- turned so caparisoned, bitted , cavisoncd, mar- t 'negated, and cruppered, that he seemed ad- mirably decorated for the immediate adven- tures of a knight-errant, the field-day charger

of a general officer, or ready accoutred for the champion of England to make his public entry into Westminster-Hall. My instruc- tions were to ride him for some time " in Jus tackle, though he was as well broke , as steady, temperate , and safe as any horse in the kingdom." My very first excursion, how- ever, convinced me of the honour and pro- bity of this scientific operator ; for the colt was in possession of every vice without a sin- gle perfection in his favour, except a wonder- ful alacrity atr stopping , which he had the kindness to do, unsolicited, at every public bouse upon the different roads for some miles round : to all which he had been rotationally led, and daily placed for many hours in the stable of one or the other , while his indefati- gable tutor was, like " friend Razor " in the Upholsterer, constantly getting drunk for the good of his country !

As I before said, he was much worse in qualities and condition than at his depar- ture ; but as the reward had been gradually drained during the time the supposed work was in hand, purchased experience and pa- tient repentance were the onlyremainingcon-

solations. This mortifying imposition having excited no small degree of stabularikn emu- lation, I commenced rough rider to my own little establishment, under the influence of just resentment, determined to try the effect of frequent association, regular 'personal feeding, constant exercise, and gentle treat- ment, to complete my purpose ; which at- tempt having been crowned with the most perfect .success, and formed the basis of all my future endeavours, I have never since (a period of twenty-one years) condescended to accept or reward the service of breakers or rough riders of any denomination for their inestimable assistance; although in some instances I admit their utility, and acknow- ledge there are many whose merit and in- tegrity are entitled to commendation and re- ward ; but their proportion is by no means equal to those pot-valiant heroes, who take their rides and potations in strict succession, rrpon the principle of Pan in Midas , who says, " When I am most rocky, I best sit my saddle." This I can never be induced to doubt in opposition to ocular demonstra- tion, as it is the general state in which I meet the most eminent professors in every

part of the country ; from whose sober sy- stem of instruction their subject must cer- tainly derive every necessary advantage.

Without descending to a tedious enume- ration of the injuries colts in breaking, or horses in exercise, receive from pretended breakers or worthless grooms under the effect of intoxication, I return to the subject of those that are restiff or addicted to starting ; the general mismanagement of which I have already described without at all heightening the picture to a degree of exaggeration, and have now to add, that upon a well-founded opinion of the inconsistency of such severe treatment, I first formed my determination to encounter the cure of those defects, by a method directly opposite , whenever time should afford me applicable opportunity.

It is, I must acknowledge, some little gra- tification of personal ambition, to have suc- ceeded so well in a confirmation of the opi- nion I had indulged, respecting the erroneous and cruel treatment of horses of such de- scription ; and with no trifling satisfaction I communicate the fact, of having been pos-

fessed at different times of three horses incor- rigibly restiji'y and as much subject to that dangerous failure of starting as any horses in the universe, without exception. These were separately purchased with a perfect knowledge of their defects, and at a price proportioned to their deficiencies ; each of the owners and their servants considering themselves in such perpetual danger, that it was determined to afford no farther chance of a fracture for the Surgeon or a survey for the Coroner , but to dispose of them at all events as incurable. The horses purchased under such accumu- lation of disadvantages, without arrogating to myself a superiority in horsemanship or courage, I reduced by a patient perseverance, in the plan I have already laid down (as infallible ), to the most pliable and best con- ditioned horses I have ever had in possession; using no other correction of severity with, either whip or spitr, than just sufficient to let them be convinced I did not practise lenity from the motive of pusillanimity y but to af- foid them the alternative of submitting to treatment much more adapted to their own ease and safety.

By this invariable preservation of temper and perseverance of discipline, I never found but little difficulty in effecting my purpose, not only in reducing them to unconditional submission, but in exciting fjo great an attach- ment from them, that their obedience and perfection in the field, or upon the joad, rendered them objects of general request among my friends, at any equitable price I thought proper to fix them at. If I had, however, a single doubt remaining upon the propriety of this mode of treatment, a recent case has arisen to eradicate a thousand if they had existed ; and left me in the most unsullied possession of anopinion not tobe relinquished upon the persuasion of any advocate for the

violent measures I have so justly reprobated, and so earnestly despise.

The instance so far exceeding all others I have seen, is of a blood horse now in my possession, and universally known to be one of the fleetest in five of the most fashionable popular hunts in the kingdom ; this horse, when purchased, was perhaps the most restiff , sullen, and refractory, ever brought into use; his figure and qualifications were nevertheless

so palpably striking, they naturally excited every unremitting endeavour to reclaim him. The' task, however, for the first two or three weeks bore the most unpromising aspect ; no method that I could adopt seemed to have the least effect upon the obduracy of his dis- position ; hardened to an almost invincible spirit of opposition by former victories on his side, and repeated ill usuage on the other, neither persuasive encouragement nor vio- lence could prevail on him to move a single yard forward but when it was perfectly his own pleasure ; he would not only continually stop in all paces, without the least obstacle or visible cause whatever, and continue his dc termination not to go at all forward for a great length of time, but persevere in a re- trograde motion an incredible distance, with the usual concomitants of rearing , plunging, and kicking , to so violent a degree, that num- bers, of a much more serene and philosophic temper than myself, would have certainly pro- ceeded in their resentment totheutmostextre- mity, and some time or other have left him crippled or dead upon the spot. In this daily dilemma, it was the general opinion of inti- mate friends, and those who were constant

spectators of the danger I rode in for some weeks, that he was absolutely not to be sub- dued, and they positively advised me to aban- don the undertaking ; but the instinctive spi- rit of attachment to that industrious motto, " Persevere and Conquer," encouraged me to continue my original plan, which I have repeatedly explained, and most forcibly recommend; for under that system of steady and unremitting firmness, divested of vio- lence, and blended with intervening acts of tender encouragement, he is become one of the steadiest and most temperate hunters in the field ; though it is plainly perceptible by the agitation so constantly displayed in the ei/Cy the ear^ and action , upon the approach of even) stranger , that he had repeatedly ex- perienced the severe effects of bodily abuse and ill usage before he came into the tempe- rate region of my possession.

These cases are not introduced from any motive of vanity, to blazon my own practice with the stamp of perfection in fashionable " feats of horsemanship," but to afford expe- rimental, demonstrative, and incontrovertible proof, founded upon repeated personal trials

of time, patience, and danger, that horses the most perverse, obstinate, and refractory, are to be subdued and rendered completely tractable, with much more certainty, huma- nity, propriety, and expedition, than by those unjustifiable acts of violence so repeatedly mentioned and accurately explained.

Convinced of this fact by the. most atten- tive observation, my mind is too scrupulously formed to admit of an alteration in opinion : and I cannot indulge the least doubt but the subject will undergo in future a nicer de- cision, by those gentlemen whose opportu- nities have not been sufficiently numerous to ascertain the effect of the different mode of treatment upon different subjects to a critical degree of distinction ; venturing also an additional belief, in which I flatter myself most observers -will coincide, that horses originally restiff or addicted to sudden start - mg, are continually habituated in their vices by repeated ill usage of servants, and the perpetual transfer from one owner to an- other, under all the disadvantage, prejudice, and resentment inflicted upon a bad na?nef without the lucky chance of once falling Vol. II, K into

into patient and proper hands to effect the work of reformation.

IS a matter of so much importance, that it cannot be too clearly explained, or too ge- nerally .understood, consequently creates no surprise that- so many writers have conde- scended to offer their sentiments upon a sub- ject of such magnitude ; but it is to be seri- ously regretted, those opinions have been submitted to public inspection in so remote a way, as applies much more to the profes- sional conceptions of individuals than the standard of general comprehension.

The various dissertations upon shoeing, or diseases of the feet, have been in general too sublime in their language, and too much in- terspersed with anatomical disquisition and technical jargon, to acquire public patronage and commendation ; to such inconsistency alone may perhaps be justly* attributed their consignment to oblivion so soon after publi-

cation. A minute and scientific investigation or anatomical description of all the corre- sponding parts, their actions, and effects, cannot be the most proper and consistent method of being clearly understood by vthe very class or classes of people particularly interested in the explanation. Rustic Earners and uneducated grooms cannot , and gen- tlemen will not , embark in the dull and disagreeable task of theoretic or practical dissection, to discover the seat and appropri- ation of the tcndo Achilles , or the articulation of the coronary hone ; nor do I consider it more necessary for a gentlenjan to pass through a study of this kind to ascertain a proper conditional method of ordering his horses to be shod, than to go- through a course of anatomical lectures and physical inquiries, because, like the rest of mankind, he is subject to daily indisposition.

Abstruse study upon so plain a subject can never be expected from all the classes so im- mediately concerned ; it therefore becomes the province of the writer, to reduce his in- structions to such concise, undisguised ex- planation, and mode of plain reasoning on

one side> as may require no uncommon powers of comprehension on the other. Au- thors are too frequently vain of their own abilities, and seem to believe too much mat- ter cannot be introduced (however extra- neous or digressive) to give their works the appearance of elaborate study and profound erudition ; losing the subject in an affected sublimity of diction, without adverting to the great numbers who either wish to ac- quire information by every possible means where the trouble of reading can be avoided, or to obtain the purport of their medical researches by the most superficial and least expensive inquiry.

The various animadversions of different writers under this head are evidently too closely wrapped in the veil of obscurity, and seem purposely addressed much more to the anatomical judgment of the scientific Artist and operative Farrier, than to the understand- ings of the many, by whom we are to sup- pose it should be equally understood. An ele- gant arrangement of words, and ambiguity of expression, may constitute a loftiness of style more pleasing to the gentleman or the

scholar, delighting in a judicious display of polished periods ; but in the present instance is required such easy flow of plain descrip- tive matter, as becomes perfectly applicable to the inferior capacities proportionably in- terested in its effects, who have not the least right to be excluded their share of know- ledge, for the ostentatious introduction of pedantic phraseology.

Such connected chain of useful informa- tion, divested of obscure references to remote considerations (that serve only to erect one mystery upon the basis of another), must cer- tainly prove much more applicable to the in- tentional purport of common conception and general improvement than the many la- boured dissertations, whose titles promise so much , and whose learned contents communi- cate so little , at least, to be generally under- stood: under the influence of this impression, I have ever considered such concise, plain, intelligent advice, as will enable every gen- tleman, sportsman, or traveller, to perceive the necessity of adapting the mode of shoeing to the shape of his horse's foot, and the man-

ner of his going, is all that can be required ; to prevent bowing implicit obedience to the self-sufficient dictation of every rural Vulcan , who in general speaks such " an infinite deal of nothing," that it is equally difficult to understand as to be understood.

Previous to farther progress upon a subject we will endeavour to treat with great plain- ness and perspicuity, it becomes unavoidably necessary to take a slight survey of the incon- sistent ground-work upon which the fabric of such publications has been raised ; as we may, perhaps, have occasion to introduce some few observations of practical remarks upon the propriety of their recommen- dations, which shall nevertheless be pro- duced with all possible delicacy to the dif- ferent writers, wishing by no means to irri- tate their feeling in the support of an opposite opinion, where ah incumbent duty renders the inculcation indispensable.

The inconsiderate career of some pens, and compel the involuntary task of disquisition,

to prevent the ill effect of literary imposition, or misrepresentation, upon the credulity and inexperienced judgment of individuals ; who are in general, particular ly the uncultivated classes (by far the most numerous), disposed to believe every thing sanctioned with the authority of the press ; and the name of the printer bears the incontrovertible stamp of infallibility. Under the influence of this re- flection, and to prove the strict justice of the assertion, it becomes directly in point to state such inconsistencies as evidently arise in re- trospection. A writer of the present day confidently tells us in his title-page, he is " an experienced farrier of fifty years prac- tice," and promises (according to custom) a great deal more information and instruc- tion than he ever condescended to perform. He then leads, you through two hundred pages of dull, uninteresting, anatomical de- scriptive, obliquely copied from the elabo- rate workof.GiBSON ; interlards the remain- ing hundred-and-seventy pages with the almost obsolete prescriptive parts of the an- tient System of Farriery (slightly varied to evade the charge of direct plagiarism), with*

out the coinage of a new thought, or the least indicated knowledge of a new medicine. The utility of bark, opiunfr antimony , and mer- cury, those grand supporters of the materia medic A, seem almost unknown to him ; and that great basis of external application in modern practice, with its accumulation of valuable properties, the Saturnine Ex- tract, he has never once given proof of the most superficial acquaintance with. But what renders it still more extraordinary is, that out of so great a number of pages, he has thought proper to bestow upon the sub- ject of shoeing , and all the disorders, acci- dents, or infirmities, to which the feet are liable, twelve only, including his long and inoffensive prescripts for their mitigation or cure. However, as the circulation of the book has been too contracted and insignifi- cant to gratify the wants, or establish the reputation of the writer, it will be but an act of charity to contract the remarks also, sub- mitting both to their inevitable oblivion.

Another, of not only longer standing, but much greater estimation, has condescended

to afford a few more u reflections upon Shoeing Horses ; but, exclusive of its being a confessed translation (and conse- quently entitled to little more respect than hearsay evidence in a court of justice), it is so replete -with mechanical principles and mathematical reasoning, so interspersed with abstruse references and technical allusions to certain bones and tendons , their motions and effects , that I cannot reconcile the descrip- tion as at all applicable to the intellectual ca- pacities of those mostly concerned in the operative or superintending part of the

A third has produced what he denominated " A Treatise on the Diseases and Lameness of Horses, with a proper method of Shoeing in general but whether from a want of sta- bility in his own disposition (or what other motive I know not) he soon took a formal leave of the principal subject, and entertained his readers with a dance through Turkey, the desei ts of Arabia, and a comparative survey of the whole animal creation ; ornamenting almost every page with various Latin quota- tions^ as an excitement to the general im-

provement of all parties interested in the ea- p Inflatory parts of his work.

This author, in the early pare of his tract, says, " If you pretend to have your horse shod according to your own mind, it is a general saying among these men, that they do not want to be taught." This very ac- knowledgment of his justifies the necessity of recommending to the remembrance of every gentleman, sportsman, or traveller, that he is, in the business of shoeing, only the imagi- nary main spring in the operative part ; and that his inclination or directions become un- avoidably dependent upon the will of another. That this remark may be divested of its para- doxical appearance, let it be understood how very much the safety , propriety, and excel- lence of manual execution depend upon the well-timed liberality of the Gentleman ; or, in farther illustration of a passage that may savour too much of ambiguity to those whose pecuniary pulsations render it difficult of comprehension, it is almost incredible how very much occasional judicious interpo- sitions of good beer , (or the means to obtain it), with the subordinate operator, improves,'

to a certainty , the system of " Shoeing in general," through every part of England.

The mechanical world at large stand in no need of information, that in all climates, regions, countries, and counties, there are (passing under the denomination of gentle- men) possessors of horses, too mean and mercenary ever to be obeyed , farther than they can command by the incessant suspi- cion and personal fatigue of ocular demon- stration ; whose very servants, as well as tradesmen, justly hold them in so much de- testation, and whose conduct is so inconsist- ently consistent, that it serves only to in- crease the general odium of their characters, the additional mortification of feeling the weight of the opprobrium), without the power or inclination to retrieve them.

This universal resentment extends itself, in its effects, to his most trifling concerns ; the same dislike and indifference that fol- low him in all other respects, attend him in this ; the significant appellation of " a d* - d bad one " is equitably bestowed upon Jiim by the domestics under his own roof,

and re-echoed from servant to smithy and smith to servant ; while the poor animal becomes the subject of passive obedience ; for whether zvell or ill shod, pricked or lamed, is a matter of indifference to all parties ex- cept the owner, who being thus acknow- ledged so despicable a character, no one feels for his disquietude or misfortunes, but ex- ultingly exclaims, that what's too had for another is too uood for him.

Such characters as these are not the pro- lific effect of a fertile imagination, but ex- .act pictures of objects the produce of every soil. No gratification of ambition, no per- sonal ostentation, can be indulged in the present discrimination, by arraigning the disgraceful want of liberality in others, or vainly endeavouring to extol my own : it is, however, matter of the most unsullied exultation, that such accusation has never been known to reach the hospitable hall of a Sportsman's Habitation ; their universally admitted generosity, calculating upon the principle of self-preservation, stands much more in need of the curb than the spur, the general tenor of every

pursuit leaving them totally exculpated from the bare suspicion of being included in the " beggarly description."

Taking leave, therefore, of that part of the subject, as can but ill accord with the feelings of those who may become perso- nally affected by so faithful a representa- tion of their domestic penury, I beg per- mission to recommend for their delibera- tive imitation a part of my invariable prac- tice for a series of more than twenty years. This has always been, to let the manual operator (or journeyman, whom I ever con- sidered the main spring of the machine) enjoy some pecuniary compensation, in ad- dition to the professional emolument of the master, not more from a conscientious conviction of its being greatly merited by the trouble, care, and danger of shoeing high-spirited and refractory horses, than experimental demonstration, that Genero- - sity, founded upon the basis of equity, will inevitably insure its own reward. This, is at least a lesson I have every right to inculcate, when I can affirm with the strict- est veracity, I have never had a horse sus-*

tain the most trifling injury under the hands of the Smith, nor ever a horse plated btit what proved a winner .

The trifling attention, the humane bene- faction of a cooling beverage to allay thirst in the excessive heat of summer, or the salutary interposition of an invigorating cor- dial to encounter the extreme severity of fbost or snow in winter, are offices of kind- ness that in their visible effects upon the hand and hammer , insure, beyond a doubt, the safety of the horse and the reputation of the owner. The philanthropic influence of " doing as you would be done unto," is repaid with the most flattering interest ; the same care and attention bestowed upon the feet in shoeing, are extended in general tenderness to the safety of the whole frame upon all other professional occasions ; if refractory or vicious, he is soothed by kind- 71 ess, not provoked by violence ; in short, whatever fatigue ensues, whatever difficulty occurs, the execution is cheerfully corn- pleated, with a retrospective reference to the persevering hospitality of the Master, who living in an unvaried scene of uni-

versal benevolence amidst his happy do- mestics, enjoys the very anticipation of his wishes in the cheerful services of a long list of old and faithf ul dependents.

A contrast in character so exceedingly s common, that it may be found in almost every parish in the kingdom, is perhaps well worthy the attention of those who may be at all interested in the description, or their different effects. The constant ill - usage and violent abuse of horses, either timid, vicious , or refractory , under the hands of the operator, is a matter of sufficient no- toriety to every man who has had occasion to superintend their practice ; such cruelties require not to be sought after in remote cor- ners by scrutinizing curiosity, they meet the eye of the Traveller daily in the most public situations. No judicious observer, no old groom or young smith , need be reminded what an infinity of fine and valuable horses go through a tedious task of misery in re- and course of alteratives , for defects or dis- eases in the eyes, originating only in the cruel hand and heavy hammer of the Smith,

with the emphatical accompaniment of

" stand still and be d d to ye" when

shifting and uneasy under the operation of shoeing ; a circumstance that during a cer- tain season of the year, is frequently occa- sioned by Jlies only , and consequently to be removed with very little trouble either to the animal, or his more inveterate perse -

This delineation may serve as an epitome of the many injuries sustained from similar acts of injustice, the true causes of which are never discovered or known but to the inhuman perpetrators : from severe blows with instruments of this kind (as hammer, pincers, blood-stick, &c.) frequently ori- ginate lameness in various parts, tumors, formation of matter, wounds, exfoliations, with others too numerous and probable for enumeration ; all or either of which are generally attributed to a different cause, or defect in the constitution, and treated ac- cordingly. Injuries to the eyes and dislodge- ment of the teeth are, however, among the most common evils of this kind ; which are in general tolerably reconciled to the too

great credulity of the owner, by the plau- sible fiction of the experienced adept in im- position, who is always prepared to report, one the effect of a kick, the other a bite. Dangerous as these practices are to horses of any age or qualifications, they are doubly so to young ones ; for a degree of severity and ill usage at their first and second shoeings very frequently fixes in the disposition an habitual aversion to Smiths , and a reluctance in approaching their shops , never after to be obliterated by any means whatever; and how- ever opinions may clash upon the subject of extreme severity to horses, I shall continue to persevere in the truth of my former asser- tion, - if they are innately timid,, vicious , or restive , unconditional violence alone will never make them better.

Having found it unavoidable to introduce remarks that are not only evidently con- nected with, but necessary to usher in the

subject, we now proceed to such superficial knowledge of the operative part, as it is absolutely requisite every person should be

in possession of, who wishes and retain the power to direct

to understand a method of

shoeing, best adapted to the foot and action of his own horse. I , never considered it at all necessary that a gentleman, sportsman, tradesman, or traveller, is to commence blacksmith in theory, and go through the rudiments of the trade to promote his inten- tion ; that has hitherto been the systematic mode of tuition : but when it is considered how very few' will enter a wide field of abstruse study, to comprehend what he is told is a proper method of shoeing his horse , it can create no surprise that it has been attended with so little success.

My conception of the necessary know- ledge is unequivocally this : - although every Smith in professional etiquette may be deemed an artist , I defy the force of logic itself to render every artist a conjurer ; and as there must inevitably remain among the collateral descendants from Vulcan (as in most other professions) some prodigies of brightness , who, incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, shoe one horse as they shoe another , or, in plainer English, shoe all alike ; such discrimination becomes palpably useful, as will enable the owners to give condi-

tional directions for the ease and safety of his horse, without relying entirely upon those who will frequently be found to possess little or no judgment at all.

The greater part of those writers -who have favoured the public with a communi- cation of their sentiments upon this subject, seem extravagantly fond of an idea borrowed from antiquity, and transferred from one to another, upon the practicability of horses travelling the road, and doing their constant work without any shoeing at all : such ceco- nomicalplan may be admirably calculated for the theoretical journey of some literary spe- culatist, up two or three pair of stairs in a re- mote corner of the metropolis ; but I will venture to affirm, no such excursion can take place of any duration, without material in- jury to thp Hoof, unless to the high bred horses oj authors , many of whom enjoy their journies, as Bajazet enjoyed his cruelty, only

One of these (Osmer) has introduced his lemarks with the following rhapsodical ex-

" When time was young, when the earth was in a state of nature, and turnpike roads as yet were not, the horse needed not the as-* sistance of this artist ; for the divine Artist had taken care to give his feet such defence as it pleased him ; and who is weak enough to suppose his wisdom was not sufficient to

the purpose in such a state ?"

He then proceeds to justify an opinion, that horses are adequate to their different services in a state of nature, without the offi- cious obtrusions of art venturing to affirm that they u will travel even upon the turn- pike roads about London, without injury to their feet." 1 avail myself of the present opening to disclaim every idea of attacking the remarks or opinions of others, from a motive of intentional opposition, or to in- dulge a vein x>f satire, that assertions so cy- nicallysi ngular and extraordinary, naturally excite ; and _> shall therefore introduce upon the present occasion no' other reflection than a certain sensation of surprise, that he did not insinuate the palpable superfluity or lux- ury of sltmrs anckjtpckiiigs to the natives of -our own country, particularly when even the

fair sex' of many neighbouring kingdoms convince us they can walk eqttqUy. upright

In further confirmation of the belief he wishes , to establish, he says, rt we may every day see horses, mares, and colts running about on all sorts of ground unshod, and uninjured in their feet." This is certainly a truth too universally known even to bo questioned ; but by no means to be so far strained in its construction as to be rendered applicable, in a comparative view, to the state of working horses upon hard or stony roads, where the constant friction in riding, or the fulcrum in drawing, must inevitably prove injurious, if not totally destructive to the foot in general ; producing sandrcraeks, ter, .and other infirmities-, as is very frsa quently the case, (when a shoe has been: for some time cast unobserved by the rider ;) constituting a blemish or defect in the sub- ject never to be retrievedr Mares and colts, or horses turned out to grass without shoes, are generally kept upon low, moist, or marshy

ground, admirably adapted to preserve the foot in a growing state of perfection : the case is exceedingly different and will bear no parallel with horses of the above description ; nor can I hesitate to believe, but the absolute necessity of substantially guarding the foot is too well established, by immemorial expe- rience, to be at all shaken by the introduc- tion of any new opinions upon that part o.f the subject.

I must, to avoid a misconception of my purpose, before I proceed, confess my obli- gation, as an individual, to the memories of those gentlemen who have formerly at- tended to and written upon this head, with a desire to improve it for the promotion of a general good ; and am sorry a total want of passive pliability in my own pen, will not permit me to adhere to the " good old custom 7 of implicitly transmitting tQ succeeding ge- nerations the immaculate purity of their dictations, without presuming to introduce an opinion of my own.

" Learn to do well by others harm " is an axiom of too much excellence to be ob-

iterated from a memory replete with obser- vant advantages arising from reflection. If I could become so subservient to the fashion- able impulse of literary ambition as to ex- pect to be generally read, and after such reading to be generally understood, I might enjoy much pleasure in going over the de- criptive conformation of the bones , tendons , the inner fleshy, and the outer horny sole , the frog, and crust or hoof , with their different appropriations ; but having the most indis- putable reason to believe, -that very abstrusity of reasoning, and mysterious introduction of technical terms , have in a great degree pre- vented the reading of publications upon this subject, I shall (in earnest hope of laying just claim to superior attention) descend, like the orator in one of the celebrated Foote's comedies, " to the vale of common sense, that I may be the better understood."

It has been the secondary consideration of these speculative writers, or theoretical sportsmen, (supposing a perseverance in the custom of shoeing not to be abolished upon the power of their persuasions) to propa- gate and re-echo a doctrine equally absurd,

tending to what they preteyd to believe, a proportional reformation in some part of the operation ; viz. u That the sole and frog of a horse's foot need never be pared at all." To take up as little of the reader's time as the nature of the observation will admit, I shall very much contract wlia.t I wish to introduce more at large upon the inconsis,- tency of the declaration ; particularly a,s these rej'm anen is seem brought forward, more from a scarcity of matter necessary to com- plete their arrangement of pages for press, than the least probable utility to be derived from remarks so erroneous in their

Says the author before-mentioned, in con- La Fosse, " There is another reason equally obvious, which is, that the wisdom of the Creator intended this outer sole and its ob- duracy as a natural and proper defence to the inner sole, which lies immediately under the other, between that and the bone of the foot." He then proceeds, " If it b^ asked, What becomes of the sole when not

pared. ? it dries, separates, and scales away." In concise reply to this sublime justification and very Simple explanation, I should-, in any conversation with the writer, if he had not passed " that bourne from whence no travel- ler returns," have solicited a greater degree of candour in his opinion : whether the vails were not furnished to our own frames by the " wisdom of the Creator as a natural and proper defence" to parts of the most exqui- site sensibility ? And whether the exuberant superflux in constant growth was never to be reduced to the standard of mediocrity, till every individual of the human species be- came 2i voluntary Nebuchadnezzar ? because, upon the opinions of La Fosse, Osmer, and others , it would be the greatest presumption to suppose " the divine Artist" had left in any part of his works the least room for

W e might, certainly introduce with pro- priety a succession of similes perfectly in pojnt to render. the idea ridiculous.: resisting, hqwevei , the great temptation to animadvert upon palpable absurdities, we- come to the

proof of its " drying , separating , and scaling away" The fact is not literally so, as may be corroborated by any judicious observer ac- customed to examine the feet of horses with the degree of accuracy and nice distinction necessary to just ify or disprove any opinion that may be promulgated for public investigation or improvement. It is a matter too well known to admit of momentary cavil, that the foot, by being permitted to remain too long in its na- tural state without reduction, acquires in its several parts the appearance of deformity ; the hoof grows long , narrow , and weak ; the sole, as he says, separates, (but in part only) and comes away in partial scales, leaving a rough, hard, uneven surface of cavities and projections ; the frog becoming bruised, rag- ged and putrefied, even to different degrees of lameness. This being the exact represen- tation of a foot left to growth in a rude and unimproved state, the propriety or impro- priety of judiciously paring each part, to pro- mote a corresponding firmness, and preserve the necessary uniformity, Can never become the subject of ^disputation, but among those whose intellectual faculties are absorbed in

such an abundant flow of imaginary matter , as to render practical researches and ocu- lar demonstration too insignificant for the condescending inquiries of superior under-

Previous to a description of the different kinds of feet, at least the quality or texture of their formation, and the mode of shoe- ing best adapted to each ; a few words may be properly introduced upon the many horses rendered temporary cripples by the injudici- ous or improper mode pf forming or setting a shoe, without a relative consideration to the shape or make of the foot, or the size and action of the horse. What renders the cir- cumstance still more extraordinary is, that this error in judgment so constantly happens without the least discovery by either owner or operator in their frequent surveys and tedious consultations ; and I am the more . strengthened in my confirmation of this fact, by the repeated instances where the ceremo- nies of embrocating with those Vulcanian specifics, origanum and turpentine, have been

persevered in (even to the acts of Blister-

^ing and Rowelling) till by my desire th? shoe has been taken ajf\ when the causfi has been instantly discovered and immediately

This is a circumstance that 1 doubt not has so frequently happened in the re- membrance of every reader of experience, it can stand in no need of further illustraT tion ; we therefore proceed to such descrip- tion of the exterior parts immediately con- cerned in the operation of shoeing, as upon a superficial survey meet the eye of every iiir spector. These are, first, the bottom or lower edge of the Hoof, surrounding the whole extremity of the foot, not only as a safer guard and general defence against external injuries, but is the direct part to which the shoe is scientifically fixed, to effect the pun- poses for which it was generally intended. Secondly, the horny or outer sole, cover- ing the entire bottom of the foot, except the Frog, which is situate in the centre, (passing in a longitudinal direction frofn heel to toe and forms by its elasticity the fuh crum, or expanding basis of the tendon,

upon which the very action of the horse de-

j These, are the external parts appearing upon the surface, that present themselves to the spectator, and constitute in general all that he is supposed or required to know ; re- mote considerations and operative conse- quences appertaining much more to the pro- fessional knowledge of the Artist than any- acquired information of the Owner.

Perfectly convinced that every man may judiciously superintend , or . properly direct the shoeing of his horse, in a manner evident- ly adapted to his foot) size, wight , purpose^ and manner of 'goings without the ill-accord- ing intervention of an abstruse study very little attended to, (however elaborately urged) I forbear imposition upon public patience, by any attempt to introduce an imitation or oblique copy of anatomical descriptive, so accurately delineated and described in the copper-plates and references of Gibson and Bartlet, with, I am sorry to say, so little success ; If I may be allowed to explain, by

an opinion that the farriers themselves, a very inferior proportion excepted, seem to have imbibed no additional knowledge in equestrian anatomy, from studies so laudably exerted and clearly explained.

We come next to an explanation of the different kinds of feet, as they appear in dif- ferent subjects in their natural state. These may be defined under three distinct heads : the short, sound, black , substantial hoof j the shallow, long, weak, white brittle hoof ; and the deep, lax, porous , spongy hoof. Of these, the first is so evidently superior, that, unless by improper or unfair treatment, it hardly ever becomes the subject of disease. The next is carefully to be avoided in the purchase if possible, not only on account of their being more subject to corns than any other, but in- dicative in a great degree of constitutional delicacy in either horse or mare, they not being so well enabled to bear hard work or constant fatigue. The last of the three is so equally inferior to the first, that from a variety of causes it is frequently productive of inces- sant attention, anxietv, disease and lameness.

Having taken a view of the kinds of feet that constantly pass through the hands of the Smith in his daily practice ; and knowing the various states and forms in which they become subject to his inspec- tion, it is absolutely impossible, in all that ever has been written, or can be advanced, to lay down certain and invariable rules for the exact management of this, or the direct treatment of that particular foot, without a conditional reference to the judicious eye and discretional hand of the Owner or Operator. It must prove palpably clear to every enlightened inquirer, that no opinion or directions strictly infallible can be commu- nicated through the medium of the press, ap- plicable to every particular purpose, without proportional contribution from the judgment of the parties concerned, to give the ground work of conditional information its proper

Such instructions,- however accurately de- scribed, must unavoidably remain subject to contingent deviations, regulated entirely by tho state of the foot and circumstances of the

case ; in a multiplicity of which, so many unexpected variations occur, as render one fixed mode of shoeing absolutely impractica- ble with every kind of horse , notwithstanding what may have been hitherto advanced from supposed high authority to the con-

There are, nevertheless, some general rules in the proper system of shoeing and preserv- ing the feet, not easily to be mistaken by folly or perverted by ignorance, that shall be sub- mitted to consideration before we take leave of the subject before us ; previous to which, some part of M. La Fosse's observations, so strenuously recommended by Bartlet, become well worthy the attention of every gentleman or sportsman, who may wish to assist his judgment in the inquiry, and enable himself to decide impartially upon the pro- priety or impropriety of having his horse shod upon principles that have stood hitherto in- controverted, from a fear (I suspect) of ar- raigning authorities, the dread of whose names may have deterred many practitioners of eminence from so desirable a purpose.

I have more than once asserted my determi- nation to interfere as little as possible with the opinions or instructions of formerwriters, but where it became unavoidably necessary to establish an opposite opinion or corroborate a fact. It is a matter of some surprise that authors of eminence, who are naturally sup- posed to be " armed at all points, ' should be so incautiously off their guard, as to contraT diet themselves in the very act and emulation of conveying tuition to others* I have given a most striking instance of this error in my former volume, upon the inadvertency of Osmer, who repeatedly says with the greatest confidence and seeming belief , " Tendons are unelastic bodies and frequently, in the same or the very next page, tells you, " the tendon zvas elongated" I believe such asser- tion is of a complexion too paradoxical to re- quire from me the most trifling elucidation.

Passing over this privilege of authors with no other remark thanbare remembrance, I come directly to the analyzation of as pal- pable a professional contradiction broached by La I osse, and given to the public by Bartlet, in the true spirit of implicit and ' IT. M enthusiastic

enthusiastic obedience. These Gentlemen have in succession, after going over (as before observed) a great deal of unnecessary ground, totally unintelligible to the sporting world , endeavoured to convince us, that paring the sole or frog is not only unnecessary, but ab- solutely prejudicial; for, say they, to esta- blish a credulous confirmation of their erro- neous conjecture, " if you pare away the sole or frog in any degree ; the more you pare, the farther you take from the ground the support of the tendon, which so entirely de- pends upon the elasticity of the frog." If any one person living could be found so un- expectedly ignorant as to pare the foot parti- ally (that is, all behind and none before), such effect might probably ensue ; but surely no rational observer will attempt to deny or dis- prove a palpable demonstration, that all parts of the foot being equally pared , (that is, the hoof, sole, and frog), the centre of sup- port and action must be still the same.

But was it really as they have said ; if what they have so learnedly advanced was literally and justly true, what do they im- mediately do after this judicious and dicta-

torial decision ? Why, strongly recommend, with the full force of theoretic persua- sion, the introduction of a mode of shoeing directly contradictory to the opinion just re- cited, that may be perfectly adapted to and coincide with the sentiments of any writer in the act of amusing himself \ employing the Printer , and deceiving the Public ; but can never be brought into general practice, without perpetual hazard to the horse, and imminent danger to the rider. This is so perfectly clear, that I will go very far beyond bare literary assertion, and be boimd to stake both property and professional reputation, upon the certain failure of 'their improved proposition of shoeing, with what they call their half-moon shoe, with all its boasted advantages. A iong chain of remarks in opposition is by no means necessary; a very concise and candid investigation will afford ample proof of their having reconciled (in compliment to their patient readers) as pal- pable contradictions in description as Os me r, whose " unelastic tendon" was immediately after " elongated."

You. are given to understand (as I have

.before observed) that, in their opinion, if you pare the sole or frog/ you prevent the heel of the horse from coming into constant con- tact with the ground ; and the tendon is de- prived of the elastic assistance of the frog to promote its expansion and contraction. This is at least the exact purport of their description, if not given in the, very same language, and is very well entitled to the deliberate attention of those who wish to , un- derstand accurately the state of the tendon (or back sinews) when in the Stahultirian tongue they are said to be " let down."

Such a paring and hollowing out of the heel as they seem to describe, must be a most Unmerciful destruction of parts, and what I believe can seldom happen in the present age, unless in the remote and least improved parts of the kingdom. Concluding, however, they took only a conjectural survey of this mat- ter, 1 must beg leave to observe, that im- mediately after reprobating the idea of raising the frog from the ground by paring , they strenuously recommend a much more cer- tain method of producing the very evil they tell you they wish to prevent. And this- by

raising all the fore part of the foot, with " the half-moon shoe, set on to the middle of the hoof," not only forming an irregular and preternatural surface, but (by a want of length and support at the heel) constituting an unavoidable chance of relaxing the sinews in the perpetual probability of their being extended beyond the clastic power prescribed by nature.

This difference of opinion becomes so im- mediately connected with a particular passage in my former volume upon the subject of " strains ," that it is absolutely necessary to quote a few lines for the better comprehen- sion of the case before us ; far I have there said, " To render this idea so clear that it cannot be misunderstood, let us suppose that a horse is going at his rate, and in so doing his toe .covers a prominence, or the edge of one, where the heel has no support , it consequently extends the tendons beyond the distance afforded by nature, and instantly continues what is called a letting down of the back sinews, a circumstance that con- stantly happens upon the turf in running

for a beat, and the horse is then said to have " broken down."

This description comes so directly in point with the shape and state of the horse's foot in their mode of shoeing, that the horse must be at all times - liable to sudden lameness, and more particularly at the rising of every hill , where his foot would be exactly in the situation by which I have described strains

to be acquired. Every reader at all ac-

quainted with, or having even a tolerable

idea of, the anatomical structure of the leg

and foot, by taking a comparative view of

the mode of shoeing recommended, and the

evident manner of sustaining an injury in the

back sinews, as they are termed, will be

sufficiently enabled to decide upon the con- sist, eney of the proposed plan, and, I flatter myself, enough convinced of the danger to coincide with me in opinion, that a horse shod in this manner, to cover a hilly coun- try either in a journey or the chace , must inevitably fall dead lame, from a relaxation of the tendinous parts ; or, even in a low flat country, become so exceedingly weary from a want of proper support for the heel,

that he could never be able to go through a second day's fatigue without an alteration in his favour.

Establishing this as a fact not to be con- troverted by the fallacious effect of specu- lative rumination, and perfectly convinced neither entertainment nor utility can be de- rived from farther tedious explanatory re- marks and observations upon the inconve- niencies of such mode of shoeing, as well as the numerous difficulties not to be surmounted if inadvertently encountered, I shall only slightly insinuate the absolute impossibility of hunting or travelling (particularly in the rainy seasons) in various hilly or chalky - parts of the kingdom, without the accumu- lated probabilities of lameness to the horse, continual danger to the rider, and the inevi- table certainty of bruising the heel and frog to a degree of- disease, which must prove the resulting evil even upon the flattest and best turnpikes; but in the rough and stony roads, or strong and dry hard clays, such events may be expected as totally unavoidable.

Bidding adieu to a mode of shoeing calcu-

lated only for the soft and artificial floor- ing of a French Riding School, we come to such considerations as are adapted to the state of our own roads, the customs of our country, and the intellectual faculties _ of those to whose scientific skill the mallea- bility of the metal, the important use of the butteris, the judicious formation of the shoe, and the equally decisive direction of the nail, are universally entrusted. Adverting for a

moment to the before-mentioned allusion to

Osmer's observation upon these men, who say, " they do not want to be taught," it is very natural to suppose, from the profes- sional knowledge they should have acquired by strict attention and steady experience, that they cannot "want to be taught;" but that their judgment, founded upon the best basis, manual art , and titular inspection , ought to be much superior to any theo- retical instructions that can be obtruded or enforced. Under that persuasion, and feel- ing for those, few who have industriously rendered themselves adequate to all the diffi- culties of the trade, I feel no surprise that such spirited expostulatiops should be made, as must frequently happen in reply to many

pedantic consequential pretenders, who by their futile remarks and ignorant instruction , excite the jealous irritability of men, who, conscious of their own ability and integrity, possess (like Hotspur) too much innate spirit and personal courage to be perpetually pes- tered by " a popping jay."

It has been before observed, that many horses have undergone various operations for supposed lamenesses in different parts, when time, and the lucky interposition of a ju- dicious opinion, have discovered the cause to be (where it is too seldom accurately searched for) in the foot. Lameness of this description proceeds in general from someone or other of the following causes: the nail- holes for the fastening of the shoe to the foot being inserted too far from the outer edge, in the web of the shoe, and consequently, when tightly clinched , bearing too hard upon the fleshy edge of the inner sole, constitutes a preternatural compression upon the internal parts and consequent impediment to ease or

Another causeexceedinglycommon, (when

the horse is said to be pricked in shoeing) is the oblique direction of a nail, which, taking an improper and inverted course, either per- forates, or in its progress presses upon the inner sole, puncturing some of the soft parts, thereby producing certain lameness : which, not ^immediately discovered, tends to inflam- mation, that too often terminates in a remote formation of matter constituting a case of the most serious consequence.

A third cause is the inconsistent method of forming the web of the shoe too wide for the foot of the horse, and raising it so much, or hollowing it out all round the inner edge, as to give it a palpaple convexity when fixed to the hoof. By this convexity round the inner edge of the web, the support becomes unnaturally partial, and even in the constant weight of the horse only (without recurring to action) constitutes an opposition to its ori- ginal purport ; for the invariable pressure upon the curved part of the shoe only, must raise in the surrounding parts such a propor- tional counteraction, that the harder the horse bears in action upon a hard surface, the more must every motion tend to force the very nails

.from their hold, but that the clinches prevent their being withdrawn: in this state the horse, though not absolutely lame, limps in perpe- tual uneasiness, till the clinches of the nails are so relaxed as to bring the centre nearly to a level with the rest of the foot, where it frequently forms an additional cause to the original ill, by coming into close contact with the sole, which, pressing upon with any de- gree of severity, occasions a slight lameness that becomes immediately perceptible.

Another very common cause of lameness with horses of this description originates in the shoes being formed too short and narrozo at the heel, by which means, in less than a week's constant wear, the hoof (or " crust" some writers have termed it for the sake of refinement) being also narrow , the heels of the shoes make gradual impression, and con- stitute a palpable indentation upon the edge of the sole directly over its articulation with the hoof, producing to a certainty, if perse- vered in, the. foundation of corns or a tem- poral y lameness, that is generally removed by removing the shoe.

A few additional bad effects, but of infe- rior consequence, resulting from injudicious shoeing, may be concisely ranged under the heads of raising the shoes too high in the heels without due discrimination, throwing the fet- lock joint into a distorted position corns ill treated or horses ill shod, to occasion the im- perfection of cutting either before or behind, an evil arising much more from want of pro- fessional accuracy in the operator, than any abortive effort in the process of Nature. These are, however, merely superficial incon- venicncies, to be remedied by such attention and circumspection as no one friend to the animal we treat of will ever refuse to bestow.

Rules for the prevention or cure of these are luckily calculated by their brevity for communication or retention. The heols of horses should never be artificially raised, only in exact proportion to the state of their feet, the season of the year, and their manner of going, not without some additional reference to the road or country they generally travel; all which every Smith of the least emi- nence should perfectly understand from prac- tical experience , without a long table of con-

ditional instructions to fix a criterion, which must, after all the speculative matter or ex- perimental knowledge that can be introduced, ' be regulated by the exercise of his own pro- fessional penetration, or the personal super- intendance of those whose instructions it must be his interest to obey.

Corns, in general occasioned much more by the unobserved stricture of the shoe (as before described) than any defect in nature, are not sufficiently attended to in their earliest state for speedy obliteration ; but permitted to acquire, by time and continuance of the cause, a rigid callosity before the least attempt is made for extirpation ; during which inat- tention they become so inflexibly firm in their basis, that they are not easily to be eradicated, though great care and perseverance will greatly assist their mitigation, if not entirely establish their cure.

The best and most consistent method is to reduce it with the drawing knife as much as the ^extent of the corn and the depth of the sole will admit, observing not to exceed the bounds of discretion in penetrating the horny

sole too deeply , rendering, by a step of imprti* dence, the remedy worse than the disease. When it is thus reduced as much as the state of the corn and the texture of the foot will justify, let the entire destruction of it be at- tempted by the occasional application of a few drops of oil of vitriol over its whole surface ; or its rapidity of growth restrained by the as- matic (commonly called Friar's) balsam , cam- phorated spirits of wine, or tincture of myrrh.

This being performed, if the vacuum is large or deep from whence the substance has been extracted, and the operator has been under the necessity of nearly perforating the outer sole, so as to be productive of additional tenderness to the original cause of complaint} care must be taken to prevent the insinuation of extraneous substances of different kjnds, as stones, gravel , dirt , or such other arti- cles as may very much irritate and injure the part. This is best effected by plugging up the cavity with a pledget of tozo, first hardening the surface well with one of the before-mentioned spirituous applications; re- membering not to insert the tow too closely to

destroy its elastic property, forming ahardness from its abundance that may painfully press upon the tender part it is designed to defend.

It has long been an established practice after drawing a corn , an injury sustained in any part of the hoof, causing a partial defect or a diseased state of the frog, as inveterate thrush, &c. to protect the part with a bar-shoe, formed and adapted to such purpose ; this is certainly a conditional security; but there is still a space between the foot and the shoe to receive and retain any substance that may be- come injurious by its lodgment and painful pressure as before-mentioned. To prevent the possibility of which I should always re- commend (in cases that require it) the insinu- ation of a sufficient quantity of tow to fill up the interstice ; and that its retention there might be rendered a matter of greater cer- tainty, it should be well impregnated with a portion of diachylum \ with the gums, first melted over the fire; this will not only fill up the opening with neatness (properly managed) but form a bolster of ease to the part, and ex- clude to a certainty the admission of articles we have just described.

The cutting of horses is in general attri- buted to some impropriety in the mode of forming or setting the shoe; though this is by no means to be considered the/// variablccame, for such inconvenience is sometimes produced by very different means. Horses', for instance, frequently injure themselves when in too long and repeated journies they become leg weary, and though of great spirit and bottom, com- pulsively submit to the power of exhausted nature; when hardly able to get one foot be- fore the other, it can create no surprise that they feel it impossible to proceed in equal di- rection, but move their limbs in the most ir- regular manner, zmtrping and twisting , as if their falling must prove inevitable at every successive motion. In such state of bodily debilitation, injuries of this kind are un- doubtedly sustained, and too often by the in- advertency or inexperience of the rider or driver, supposed to arise from some imper- fection in the operation of shoeing, which in this instance is no way concerned.

It is not so in others, where the shoe be- ing formed too wide for the hoof , or with a projecting sweep at the heel, (particularly in

horses, who, from an irregular shape of the foot, called turning out the toe , are addicted to a kind of curve in action against the fet- lock joint of the other leg) the evil is con- stituted to a certainty ; but when it arises from these causes, it is always to be removed or greatly mitigated by the judicious in- terposition of the Smith, whose particular province it is to discover and remedy the

Another cause of this inconvenience very frequently proceeds from what I have ever considered a palpable absurdity in the system of shoeing, and anxiously wish it to undergo a general improvement : this is the incon- sistent, ridiculous , and I may almost venture to add, invincible folly of forming a groove in the web of the shoe, neither large enough nor deep enough to admit the head of the nail, for the entire reception of which the plan was originally formed ; though seldom or ever made sufficiently wide to complete the purport of its first intention.

The disadvantage arising from this want (or prostitution) of judgment in execution, is

not more the irregular surface of the foot, upon a hard road or pavement , throwing it unavoidably into a variety of unnatural posi- tions by the heads of some nails being ridi- culously high or projecting from the shoe, and others as much below them, than the certainty of all the clinches being raised in a very few days use by the weight and action