show the utility and rationale of employing loose boxes instead of stalls. "The almost perpetual movement of a horse in a state of nature, while grazing, greatly tends to preserve the different elastic parts of his foot in a sound and healthy condition, by the regular compression and expansion they undergo, according as his weight is thrown upon or removed from them; but if we chain him to a post for twenty-two out of every twenty-four hours, we can scarcely wonder that so unnatural a proceeding should derange an organ that requires motion to preserve it in health. . . . . Let us see how loose boxes are to prevent evils. When a horse is free to move, he very rarely remains long in the same place or the same position; he is perpetually turning himself about, either to catch a distant sound, or observe an approaching footstep,-every thing attracts him, every thing interests him; and, what is of far greater moment, every thing causes him to move, whereby each foot is benefited to the extent of some four or five expansions and contractions, and the sound of the corn-bin at feeding time will produce at least fifty such. It is far otherwise with the poor beast chained up in a stall: he is attracted by the same sounds, hears the same step approach, and feels the same interest; he pricks his ears, bends his head, and strains his neck! but, alas, he does not move, - his feet are not expanded, turning about he knows to be impossible, and therefore he does not attempt it. Even the sound of the corn-bin, though it excite him to jump and play, will scarcely cause him to expand his feet: the excitement inclines him to rush forward, while the wall forbids him to comply, and he is forced to collect himself, so as to throw his weight on his hind quarters, almost to the entire exclusion of the fore feet. Horses accustomed to a loose box generally acquire a slow deliberate movement in it, allowing their weight to dwell evenly and fully upon each fore foot; whilst those kept in the stalls for the most part move in it with a quick, sudden, catching motion, scarcely ever intrusting their whole weight to either foot for more than a moment." Loose boxes are not so useful to farm as to saddle horses, as they have regular exercise every day, and they consequently have more need of rest than of motion in the stable.

1558. Fig. 122 gives a very convenient arrangement of such loose boxes, where a is a large one, 18 feet by 8 feet, for a large harness horse, or a mare with a foal for a time; c is the next largest, 13 feet by 8 feet; and b is the smallest one, 10 feet by 8 feet; h are the corn mangers; i the hay racks; d the harnessroom, 8 feet by 5 feet, with a window; and g a space to contain the pails, fork, shovel, and broom. The doors of the loose boxes, and the outer door ff, are so made to open as to leave a clear passage e for the horses to go out and come in with freedom; while the door of the harness-room and the various utensils are covered by these doors, and placed out of reach of the horses. The partition-walls between the horses should be made of brick, and lined with deal 4 feet high, and carried to 6 feet at the hay-racks, and iron rails should surmount the

1559. Objections have been made against loose boxes, on the ground that they occupy much larger space than stalls; but this objection should bear little weight in a set of offices in the country, where space is no object. It is also said that horses are always dirty in loose-boxes, by their moving about casting up dust, and lying down upon their own dung. Such an objection is most likely to be urged by an indolent country groom. They are also said to allow foulfeeding horses to eat their litter. This is true, but any horse can be prevented doing so by means of a muzzle.

meet the demand at first, it is still less able now. By this time the horse is very lean: his bones stare through the skin, he is spiritless, stiff and slow, and his belly is tucked up almost to his back-bone. The horse becomes unfit for work. Rest and good food soon restore him; but if the work be still exacted, the solids and fluids change, the system falls into decay, and a disease, such as a common cold, or the influenza, from which a horse in ordinary condition would soon recover, produces in this worn-out animal glanders or farcy. Work is sometimes exacted till the horse is ruined: but the owner rarely escapes, for when glanders once appears, it seldom stays where it begins. General stiffness usually accompanies emaciation. When first taken from the stable, the horse seems to be stiff all over: he obtains greater freedom of motion after he is tolerably well warmed by exertion; but he never has great speed. In racers and hunters, the extent of stride is perceptibly contracted towards the close of their working season. They are termed stale, and require some repose, and green meat or carrots, and sometimes a little physic to refresh them.

1565. The legs are often so ill formed, that they fail without excess of work. But fast paces, long journeys, and heavy weights, ruin the very best. A single journey may produce lameness; it may give the horse sparin, or grogginess, or some other lameness may be the result of one day's work. But this is more than excess. The horse may have to perform it twice or thrice in his lifetime, but if it be such as to make him lame, it is too much to form regular work. The excess to which I allude does not produce lameness till after the horse has done the journey several times in succession. When in two or three he becomes lame, it is high time to make arrangements for preventing more. The distance may be shortened, the draught or weight lightened, or the pace retarded. The legs often show that the work is in excess, though the horse may not be lame. The fore legs suffer most, but the hind are not exempt. When there is much up-hill work, or much galloping, the hind fail as often as the fore. The pasterns become straight, and, in extreme cases, the fetlock joint is bent forward: this is termed knuckling-over. At a later period, the knees bend forward. The whole leg is crooked, deformed, tottering. Besides these, the legs become tumid, round, puffy. There is a general tumefaction, and the legs are said to be gourdy, fleshy, or stale. The deformity produces unsteadiness of action; the limbs tremble after the least exertion, and the horse is easily thrown on the ground. The tumefaction produces a tendency to cracked heels and to grease. Sometimes the pasterns descend backward, instead of inclining forward. Very often the back tendons suffer enlargement, which, in some cases, depends entirely upon accumulation of the fluid by which they are lubricated, not upon any enlargement of the tendons themselves. The back and fetlock joints are always large and puffy. These enlargements are termed wind-galls, bog-spavin, and thorough-pin. They are little bags containing jointoil, which prevents friction. Rapid and lasting

motion increases the quantity of the fluid, and dilates the bags which contain it. The legs of racers and hunters are always more or less the worse of wear towards the close of their working season. If these horses were wanted all the year through, the legs would demand rest, though the body might not. Hunters rest all summer, racers all winter, and during repose their legs regain their original integrity and form. The legs of horses are very differently constructed. Some are so well formed that they suffer a great deal before they begin to fail; others are so defective that they will not stand hard work. With racers and hunters, much may be done to save them: fomentations, hand-rubbing, and bandages, are of much service after severe work, but they require too much time and attendance to be employed for inferior horses. It is the fashion at present to dispense with breech-bands; and where the road is pretty level, or the carriage light, they are of little use. But it seems to me they have been too generally discarded. Without breech-bands, the whole weight of the carriage in going down hill is thrown upon the neck, and from the neck to the fore-legs. Hilly ground is destructive to both fore and hind legs, but the fore ones always fail first.

1566. The feet are often injured by excess of work. The fore-feet are liable to one disease, which has been emphatically denominated 'the curse of good horses.' I mean the navicular disease, or grogginess. It is very common among all kinds of fast workers. Bad shoeing, neglect of stable care to preserve the feet, hard roads, and various other agents, have been blamed for producing it. But it seems to me the most common and the most certain cause has been too little considered. Long journeys at a fast pace will render almost any horse groggy. Bad shoeing and want of stable care both help, but I am sure they alone never produce grogginess. The horse must go far and fast: if his feet be neglected, or bad shoeing, a slower pace and a shorter distance will do the mischief; but I believe there is nothing in the world will make a horse groggy, except driving him far enough and fast enough to alter the synovial secretion of the navicular joint. Cart horses are quite exempt; those working in the omnibuses, always on the stones, and often at 10 miles an hour, but never more than a mile without stopping, are nearly exempt. The horses most liable are those which work long and fast. Founder is sometimes, though very rarely, the result of excessive work, but in most, if not in every case, there is also some error in feeding or watering in operation at the same time. Of all these evils, it most frequently happens that the horse is affected in more ways than one. In general, emaciation, stiffness, and staleness of the legs, go together.

1567. Horses that are doing full work, as much as they are able to do, can hardly have an excess of food. Some kinds of work, such as that given to mail and stage horses, require an unlimited allowance. If the horse have good legs, or legs equal to the pace, distance, and weight, he cannot perform all the work of which he is capable

without as much corn as he will eat. But there are some kinds of work, such as racing and hunting, and especially steeple-chasing, which are so injurious to the legs that long intervals of repose are necessary-sometimes eight or ten days must elapse before the horse can repeat his task. In this time, a great eater will become fat and short-winded upon a full allowance of food, or his skin will itch and rise in pimples. In such a case, bran mashes or a few carrots should be given now and then, instead of corn. Alteratives, diuretics, and suchlike evacuants, may be given; but I think more economy in the distribution of food would render them less necessary. Deficiency of food impairs condition much sooner, and more certainly, than excess. It produces emaciation and stiffness, dulness and weakness, in less time than excess of work. The food is deficient when the horse loses flesh, and gets less corn than he could eat. The work is in excess when he loses flesh, and has all the corn he will consume.'

1568. You thus clearly perceive that, as regards the saddle and harness horse, idleness, excess of work, excess of food, and deficiency of food, are one and all fruitful sources of disease, affecting both the legs and feet, and the hind-legs as well as the fore.

1569. Trimming the heels.-Cart-horses, however much hair they may have on the heels, are never trimmed; blood-horses never require trimming; and saddle-horses, having now more blood in breeding than formerly, their heels are not so rough, and do not require so much trimming so that trimmed heels are rarely to be seen. Nevertheless, it may be necessary to make a few remarks on the effects of trimming on the constitution of the horse.

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1570. "There has been considerable difference of opinion," observes Mr Stewart, as to the propriety of trimming the heels. Some contend that the long hair soaks up the moisture, keeps the skin long wet and cold, producing grease, sores, cracks, and scurfiness. By others this is denied they affirm that the long hair, far from favouring the production of these evils, has a tendency to prevent them. But there is another circumstance to be taken into consideration, and that accounts sufficiently for the difference of opinion. When the horse is carefully tended after his work is over, his legs quickly and completely dried, the less hair he has about them the better. The moisture which that little takes up can be easily removed; both the skin and the hair can be made perfectly dry before evaporation begins, or proceeds so far as to deprive the legs of their heat. It is the cold produced by evaporation that does all the mischief, and if there be no moisture to create evaporation, there

can be no cold, no loss of heat save that which is taken away by the air. If there were more hair about the heels, they could not be so soon nor so easily dried. If the man requires ten minutes to dry one leg, the last will have thirty

During two very wet winters, I have paid particular attention to the subject; my practice has brought it before me, whether I would or not; I have had opportunity of observing the results of trimming and no trimming among upwards of 500 horses. Nearly 300 of these are employed at coaching and posting, or work of a similar kind, and about 150 are cart-horses. Grease, and the other skin diseases of the heels, have been of most frequent occurrence where the horses were both trimmed and washed; they have been common where the horses were trimmed, but not washed; and there have been very few cases where washing and trimming were forbidden or neglected. I do not include horses that always have the best of grooming; they naturally have little hair about the legs, and some of that is often removed; their legs are always washed after work, but they are always dried before they have time to cool. If, then, the horse have to work often and long upon wet or muddy roads, and cannot have his legs completely dried immediately after work, and kept dry in the stable, and not exposed to any current of cold air, he must not have his heels trimmed. most well regulated coaching stables, this operation and washing are both forbidden.”+

In

+ Ibid. p. 113.

1575. But as few pigs are so accommodated, the usual practice is the best, of refraining from the breeding of young pigs in winter, and of letting those which are able to provide for themselves have the liberty of the courts; but still that liberty should be guarded with discretion. Of several litters on foot at the same time, the youngest should receive more nourishing food than the older; and the reason for giving them better treatment is founded on the general principle, that creatures when stinted of food, so long as they are growing to the bone, never attain the largest size of frame they are capable of. Those growing to the bone, until it is capable of carrying as much flesh as is best suited to the market, need not be fattened. Those which have attained the full size of bone require but a short time to fatten into a ripe state. This mode of treatment, which delays the fattening, is peculiarly applicable to swine, which, having at all times a ready disposition to fatten, can be made to lay on fat almost to any degree, at any time, at any age, and upon any size of bone.

1576. That the youngest pigs may receive better treatment, they should have a court and shed for themselves. These pigs consist, probably, of the last litters of the season of as many brood sows as are kept. Here they should be provided daily with turnips as their staple food-of the sort given for the time to the cattle, and sliced as small as for sheep; and they should, besides, have a portion of the warm mash made for the horses, with such other pickings from the farm-house which the kitchen affords. They should also be provided with a trough of clean water, and plenty of litter under the shed every day. Their court-yard should be cleaned out every day. Pigs are accused of dirty

habits, but the fact is otherwise; and the accusation really applies more to their owners, who keep them dirty, than to the animals themselves. When constrained to lie amongst dirt, and eat food only fit for the dunghill, and dealt out with a grudging hand, how can they exhibit other than dirty propensities? But let them have room, choice of clean litter, and plenty of food, and they will soon be seen to keep their litter clean, place their droppings in one corner of the court, and preserve their bodies in a wholesome condition. It is the duty of the cattle-man to supply the store pigs with food, and clean out their court-yard; and this part of his duty should be conducted with as much regularity as the feeding of the cattle. Whatever food or drink may be obtained from the farmhouse is brought to their court by the dairy-maid.

1577. The older pigs have the liberty of the large courts, amongst the cattle, where they make their litter in the open court, when the weather is mild, and in the shed when it is cold. Though thus left at liberty, they should not be neglected of food, as is too often the case. They should have sliced turnips given them every day, in troughs, and they should also have troughs of water. Pigs, when not supplied with a sufficiency of food, will leap into the troughs of the cattle, and help themselves with turnips; but such dirtying of the cattle's food and troughs should not be tolerated, and it arises from their keeper neglecting to give the pigs food. The cattle-man attends upon those pigs, and should give them turnips and water at regular times.

1578. I have seen in England a handsome pigs' trough adapted for standing in the middle of a court. It consists of castiron in one entire piece, and is represented in perspective by fig. 124. Its external appearance, when viewed as it stands on the ground, approaches to that of a hollow hemisphere, with the apex flattened; and interiorly the flattened part rises up in the centre, in the form of a central pillar-thus converting the hemisphere into an annular trough, whose transverse section presents two troughs in the form of two semicircles conjoined. The diameter a b of this trough is 30 inches, the edge is finished with a