rength and
suppleness to the aged limbs, and restore something of the olden
spirit. The effect obtained from this care is the more remarkable for
the reason that nothing similar to it was experienced by the wild
ancestors of these creatures. It is as artificial as bathing in the
case of man. The influence of the treatment shows how very unnatural
is the state of our civilized horses.

The task of providing horses with food is more considerable than in
the case of any of our other domesticated creatures. By nature the
animal is a frequent feeder, and does not well endure long fasts. Its
stomach is rather small for the size of the body, and the digestive
process appears to be more than usually rapid. A mounted animal, when
taxed to its utmost, should be fed four or five times a day, and with
less than three good meals is apt to break down. No such care in the
matter of provender is necessary in the case of the other members of
man's animal family. The contrast between the physiological
conditions of the camel and those of the horse are fully recognized
by the Arabs, in their almost complete neglect of the individuals of
the one species and their exceeding care of the other.

[Illustration: English Polo Ponies]

Perhaps the greatest element of care which man has had to devote to
the horse is found in the matter of shoeing. In the state of nature
the admirably constructed hoof sufficiently provided the animal
against the excessive wearing of its horny extremity. Nature,
however, rarely provides for more strength and endurance than the
creature in its wild state demands; and so it comes about that when
horses have to bear burdens or draw carriages, particularly on
roadways, their unprotected feet will not withstand the strain which
is put upon them, the rate of growth of the structure composing the
hoof not being sufficiently rapid to make good the wearing which
these unnatural conditions impose. For thousands of years, in the
roadless stages of man's development, the difficulties arising from
the wearing of the hoof were not serious, for the creatures trod
either on turf-covered plains or on the soft ways of the desert.
When the advance of culture made roads necessary, when carriages
were invented and something like our modern conditions were
instituted, it became imperatively necessary to provide additional
protection for the feet. We find the Greeks, in the classic time,
wrestling with this problem. Xenophon, in his t