t from singeing horses in the winter, and leaving them
to shiver in the stall inadequately clothed, to say nothing of the
frightful figures which result.

[Sidenote: No fear of cold from fine coats.]

Fear not your horse suffering from cold because he is stripped to work.
Do not labourers strip to work? If a horse had a coat thick enough to
keep him warm when at rest in winter, he could not hunt in this without
being sweated to death any more than he could with four or five blankets
on him.

[Sidenote: Stop foot with clay.]

Fire and water are equally disastrous to the horse's skin. Allow neither
singeing nor washing above the hoof, and even this only for
_appearance_. For there is no more reason for washing the horse's foot
when he is kept in a stable, than there is when he is kept in a paddock.
But there are good reasons for keeping his foot full of dirt in the form
of clay in the stable. Without it he fills his foot with the contents of
the stall, which the shoe holds there. Now, which is worst for the foot,
dirt or dung? Nothing can be more injurious to the frog than this.

But, alas! all is right, even with the master, provided that there is
not a speck on the _outside_ insensible horn; and perhaps that is oiled
and blacked (!) when the horse is brought out, while _inside_, the soft
frog is left night and day soaked and saturated with the most frightful
horrors. Hence the most fetid thrushes, and hence the contracted heel;
for the contracted heel is the consequence, not the cause of the rotted
frog.

The clay should not be mixed up with any of the horrors which grooms are
so fond of. Besides defending the frog from the highly injurious juices
of the stall this gives a _natural_ support to the interior of the foot
which the _artificial_ shoe deprives it of.

[Sidenote: The sore ridge.]

Every joint of the backbone or spinal bone is surmounted by a _spine_.
These are sharp and topped with gristle, and will not support weight,
still less attrition. Hence the necessity of the wooden _tree_ of a
saddle, and even of a terret-pad to bridge the _ridge_. The old plan of
fastening the horse's clothing, taken from the Persians, was by
_rolling_ a long strip loosely round and round him; hence our name of
_roller_ for the stable surcingle. This avoided injury to the ridge:
the objection is the trouble. The bridge or _channel_ of our roller is
_never_ effective, and _every_ stabled horse has a _sore ridge_. This is
a g