universalist. Equally so, in regard to soils; for the tenacious weed melilot, with all humility, embraces and fructifies the most

poor and lowly, whilst it proudly towers upon and adorns the richest. We have it growing in the hedgerows, by-ways, and woods, of our Middlesex clays. Some classic

has decreed honour to him who shall cause two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before. Stimulated by the promised reward, I am ambitious of a small slice of that honour, as the re-introductor of a long neglected but useful plant.

Another Hampshire fancy of mine, I trust, will not be quite neglected, since it has been lately noticed, so many years after date, in the Bath papers, I believe in the newspapers generally, and recommended by Sir John Sinclair. It is, to make stacks in autumn of straw (oat-straw to be preferred) and grass, natural or artificial, in alternate layers, the straw at bottom. The straw in a few months becomes impregnated by the juices of the grass, and thence tender, with some condition in it, forming a species of halfbred hay, the stack of which may be cut in the usual style, and given very advantageously to straw-yard horses, cattle, and sheep, helping to eke out the winter store.

In the August Number, p. 273, there is an energetic and just condemnation of the barbarous and, with extremely few exceptions, equally useless practice of FIRING, by a CHESHIRE EQUESTRIAN. This practice, however, farriers, and those farrierly inclined, will never consent to give up, having more distinct notions of it as a promoter of business to themselves, than as a cure for lameness in the

horse. E. P. details the most ra tional mode of cure for all curable cases: but when a horse is actually "broken down," as we phrase it, the expectation of cure is simply that of raising the dead. Further, when the contractile power and elasticity of the muscular and tendinous fibres are strained beyond a certain point-and in every horse there is that certain boundary, more or less critical-the full natural and firm elastic power can never be restored. The horse, indeed, may have the general appearance of soundness, and be even capable of considerable exertion; which, however, will never fail to reduce the imperfect tone of the fibres, and bring back lameness; which again may be partially remedied by rest and proper treatment; these alternations going on to the end of the chapter. This chapter I have more than once diligently and practically read through to the last verse.

THE OLD FORESTER has been most sedulous in his exertions, and has given a most satisfactory detail of every thing of consequence relative to the horse in France. He speaks somewhere (I write from memory) of the small muzzles (doubtless he meant to say) of some of the French horses, and of the large and elevated crests of the mares. Many years ago, and I suppose because the Godolphin Arabian had a small muzzle, that was looked upon as an indication of the highest degree of racing blood; but seeing so many highbred and good cow-mouthed racers, I soon gave a cut to that notion. We have had some few Godolphincrested stallions; indeed very fewand it is singular that the elevated crest of the foreign mare is never propagated (in the mares) of this

country. In his P.S. (Oct. No.) he speaks of the Spanish horses. The chief evidence, however, of their introduction into this country, seems to be, of a number saved on the coast of Scotland from ships of the Great Armada, wrecked on that coast. The superior, or blood species in Spain were the Jennets, a small breed, originally Barbs. Some few English turf breeders, among them Dr. Bracken, tried them as stallions, but without any record of their success. They be came, in course, mixed with the indigenous Spaniards, improving that breed, in which they have been long since merged.

To make a question of "What constitutes the English thoroughbred racer?" is an attempt to raise the dead indeed. That subject was quietly put to bed, many years since, and not one idea of novelty, or to the purpose, has been of late elicited. It is a common, but not a judicious or safe practice, to write without reference to that which has been already written. A reputed winner, stallion or brood mare, of regular prizes, by custom of the turf, is always accredited as "thorough-bred" that is to say, their performances, or use, demonstrate a sufficient quantity of South-Eastern blood; and it has long been well known that a single occasional or accidental dip of common English blood may not mar the racer; but beyond that turf-breeders have never yet ventured to proceed. Indeed, nature seems to have decreed that no horse, below seven-eighths of blood, shall be able to contend with the full-bred racer. I have never yet read, or heard, of a reputed runner only three parts bred. Thus Sampson's stock, though at first with some repug

nance and objection, were received within the pale; and such would have been the fortune of the stock of the last Driver, had he proved a successful stallion. Thus we see the absurdity of the idea of horses having a Sampson cross in their blood being admitted to start ás cocktails! Having, for reasons which I assigned, introduced the old story of Sampson, generally known on the turf long before my time, though it fell to my lot to be the first publisher of the particulars, the question arises, should not his portrait (I am not aware that it is already there) appear in the Magazine? A good drawing, a correct and excellent likeness, was taken of Sampson, the time and the then state of the art considered. I have an engraving of him, but no doubt the original portrait is in existence. My old man assured me Sampson was master of twenty stone.

Keeping racers idle and unproductive until five years old, is another well-worn, if not quite thread-bare, topic. Exclusive of the serious fact, that turf-breeding is matter of pecuniary interest, as well as of pastime, it would be absurd indeed to keep a rabble of bred things, at such an enormous expense, to that age untried. Money enough in all conscience is kicked down upon the turf under the present system. I always admired the motto on Mother Brown's job coach, furnished, it was said, by George Selwyn-Medio tutissi mus ibis. As a medium, then, let us change the training and work of our promising young racers, for those of less severity. detriment to them will arise, even if trained yearlings, which by the bye is unnecessary, their second year being sufficiently early. We may safely transfer to the subject

Thence no

of the turf the old adage, Poeta nascitur, non fit; for if your horse be not foaled a racer (and multitudes of the highest bred are not such), all the waiting and training that life will allow will not make him one. Although the five-yearold plan has, in a few instances, been actually essayed, to be how ever soon relinquished, it has been generally fortuitous when running has been delayed to that period. Eclipse, I was informed, was taken in hand at the usual time, and his training and starting were delayed until five years old, either by his being constantly amiss, or from some other preventive cause. But all the arguments in favour of the five-year-old plan are mere sieves, and in direct opposition to unim peachable experience. The great majority of our best racers have been early trained and early raced, unnecessarily severe as that training has ever been and still is. Nor can we complain that these early measures impede the growth of our race horses, since we have so many of them upwards of sixteen hands high.

Doncaster Races, last Number. -That must be an OBSERVATOR; who else could set such jewels in print? If such a thing can be, it is a good substitute for being in person at Doncaster; and so far I for one am amply content. I had backed Mulatto in my own mind, not only from what I heard of his condition, but from the short distance he had to travel. This writer has done the North-Country jockeys brown, and is far above any apprehension of the hornet's nest; still awarding them due justice for common sense, and keeping their nags in good heart and sufficient strength to carry them through the piece. It is a quality

of the highest importance in a training groom. But his lament over poor Confederate, and his advice that "humanity be extended to that most noble animal the race, horse," evinces a superior mind, and entitles him to the highest honour in all those from whom it is worth a man's while to accept honour. I had heard from another quarter of an excess of savage and sickening brutality, exercised upon one of the horses at Doncaster. When unsaddled at coming in, my informant told me, with a grin and the utmost nonchalance, "that the horse was so whipped and spurred that he, the spectator, wondered his guts did not come out-that he was ripped from shoulder to flank, as if it had been done with a butcher's knife." I shall not put down in black and white the reward I wish, from my inmost heart, to such operators, proprietors, and calm observers. It would be a precious one-feeling taught by example. These atrocities of barbarism and ignorance are a foul blot on the age and country we live in, and it is not thus we shall succeed in humanizing the Muscovite. Will no new Sir Charles Bunbury arise, young, active, beneficent, with sufficient influence and fortune to stem this torrent of beastly, degrading, and unnecessary cruelty to protect an animal, the great source of our profit and our delight, and to earn the envi» able honour of merciful and fair treatment, through his mean made customary and the order of the day upon the turf?

At page 385 of this account, I could not resist a smile. Providence, indeed, was well set to work to get up a fine day for the benefit of a congregation of horse-coursers Does not the circumstance of Tar

Is it a Sampson cross? How is it that the question relative to the pedigree of Filho da Puta hath not yet been put to rest?

or

The firstpage (same Number) of "NIMROD on the Road," cannot fail to mark him with distinction as a man of discernment, above vulgar prepossessions, and of right moral feelings. I have once twice before ventured to suggest some danger to him on this subject, from moral considerations, his intense predilection considered. The truth is, he has more than once driven his team to the very edge of the precipice; but he has now made a most complete and satisfactory amende honorable. I regret the want of leisure, at this instant, to proceed beyond the first page. His essays on the Road are among my hobby-horses.

P. 429, (ib.) I really overlooked my exposure by A NOVICE; and he, as well as NIMROD, appears to have mistaken me, who, in the very letter in question, decried the folly of exposing a horse in the "fly season." My meaning is this-if a horse must be abroad at such a season, he will, as I and hundreds beside have observed, be more harassed by the flies at the mencement, or at first turning out, than afterwards. His skin, which at first is thin and open, will thicken by degrees from the accretion of dirt and sweat, and in consequence of being moistened by the dews of night. The case is parallel with a horse turned off for a winter's run; he is always most

com

a driveller after seventy; and who shall dare to gainsay the dicta of Billy? The last, indeed, was a season, in which no man in his wits could think of keeping his hunters abroad late. Hunters cannot well be stripped and turned off too early. Good hard hay and corn must then be the substitutes for grass, and the horses may be safely housed and preparing for work before the fly shall be ready, in num◄ ber or strength, for their annoyance.

Page 433, (Ibidem,) I rejoice to find NIMROD a drill-husband, and hope the width of his rows, at any rate, borders on the orthodox, Six-inch drilling, from lost labour, I take to be bad broad-casting. The latter part of NIMROD'S observations and instructions, how to raise a luxuriant crop of wheat, will cause some farmers to smile, and others to frown.-If spaying fillies has not succeeded of late, it was not so in former days, when it was disused from other and probably sufficient causes. I have had formerly, by a London cutter, three young sows out of six killed under that operation; whereas in Hants I never lost one, though I kept fifteen breeders. Our old cutter in that county, Cordery, must by this time be gathered to his fathers, who served the Basingstoke and Aldermaston districts in that capacity, I was informed, two centuries ago. His son and successor, I trust, yet lives, though now an old man. have much to say on the commonly-received notions respecting hard meat, and its effects on the

I

horse, and something on the subject of racing weights.

American Horses, page 411.These accounts remind me of the old story of the Arab trial in the Desert, where the horse is ridden one hundred miles without drawing bit, and then plunged over head and ears in a river. Perhaps neither Arabian nor American miles are measured with English accuracy. Let us witness their performances here. I wish the American Eclipse had been sent to Newmarket at four years old. We have hacks enough here, that would travel fifty or sixty measured miles per day during a month, but they would not be the better for it.

The article on "Stage and Posting," (Ibid. page 424,) is rational and most commendable for its humanity. It is a disgraceful spectacle in a nation of horsemen to see a huge thundering fellow, perhaps of fourteen stone, upon a poor post hack, which has all that weight to carry as well as to draw, and likely enough a cripple beside. In 1796 I proposed a light chair or box, in front, instead of this shameful trespass; and I had the satisfaction to see it adopted by some few postmasters; but the improvement was soon discontinued, on the plea that the too-near approach of the postboy to their persons offended the fastidious delicacy of passengers.

JOHN LAWRENCE.

TWO LETTERS ON THE PRACTICE OF FIRING HORSES.

SIR,

IN the Number of your Maga

zine for August, EQUESTRIS PRIMUS holds forth, in no gentle terms, against all people who, unVOL. XIX. N. S. No. 110.

der any circumstances, have advised or performed the operation of firing. He sets out with saying, "If the animal be battered by hard road-work, till every fibre of the leg be in a state of inflammation, the vessels so relaxed as to be incapable of perfectly retaining or transmitting their proper fluids............he is forthwith to have burning irons applied to cauterize his already too inflamed limbs." It needs no one risen from the dead to tell us, that this writer has a sovereign contempt for the "dogmas of the schools," or he would not have talked of inflammation and relaxation existing in the same part at the same time; "but let that pass." No competent veterinary surgeon-and I conceive the question ought to rest with them-would ever dream of firing, or applying any stimulant to a horse's leg whilst in a state of inflammation. All inflammatory symptoms should be allowed to subside before any excitant is made use of; and if there are people ignorant enough to fire an inflamed limb, be the sin upon their own heads. The abuse of any operation is no argument against its utility; if it were, there are few that would not be brought into disrepute, when they fall into unskilful hands. Probably the above remarks of E. P. are meant to apply to my observations upon firing post horses (June Number); if so, I wish to inform him, that in no instance was the iron ever used till all evidence of inflammation had ceased to exist, nor till gentler means had been found of no avail.

E. P. next says, that, by firing, "the muscular fibres, which ought to slip glibly over each other," become agglutinated by the exudation of fluids not proper for their

E