Related article: limited area had to be shared
with mares and foals the defects
produced by want of acreage soon
became conspicuous. A stud may
be kept anywhere, and on almost
any soil — though one soil is better
than another for the purpose — if
there is a proper proportion be-
tween the number of horses and
the grass-land they range over.
But the number of horses that a
given acreage can carry is strictly
limited, and varies with sex and
age. It varies, too, a little on
different soils, but so trifling is
the advantage or disadvantage of
the best or poorer soils that the
matter may Order Vermox Online be safely ignored in
practice. The number of horses
per hundred acres of grass-land
is not a matter upon which an
owner or breeder has a right to
have a personal opinion, if he
wants to get the best results. It
is not one that the abundance or
shortness of a season's herbage
should in the least influence, if
the success, that is health, of the
stud is the one thing to be worked
for. The rule we are about to
give is simple enough, and has
been worked out on many varying
soils over and over again, and
found to be the best in practice.
In-foal mares require ten acres
per head. All stock requires six
acres per head till they have com-
pleted their sixth year. After
this period, horses and mares, not
in-foal, will do with five acres per
head. If staling is to be avoided
for good, only a rigid limitation
of heads per acres will prove
satisfactory.
Some breeders may laugh at
** such cast-iron nonsense." They
may do as they like about that,
for they are either following some
such practice unknowingly, or
will sooner Vermox Uk or later find out to
their cost that they have not done
so. For though this rule is
1901.]
THOROUGHBREDS AND THEIR GRASS-LAND.
321
simple, it is not so simple as it
looks; a forty-acre pasture carry-
ing two in -foal mares, and four
head of older stock or three
young ones, as the case may be,
wants keeping in order. The cattle
and sheep, especially the latter,
which should keep the pasture
down to a level, fruitful, growing,
green surface, require all the
skill and experience of Vermox 100mg Tablets the grazier.
This farming of the land is the
whole secret of success on ground
devoted to studs. That the sheep
and cattle rob the horses is the Vermox 500mg
cry of the studsmen go where you
will, but they do nothing of the
kind under normal Vermox Mexico conditions ; it
is only when we subject them to
extraordinary circumstances that
the bare struggle for existence
makes one animal rob another.
Such is the nature of our soils
and the plants they carry that
without sheep and cattle you can-
not have the grass you require for
the horses.
Try as you will to keep down
the grass Vermox Canada and make it fertile by
horses alone, it runs away from
them ; and you ruin your pastures
in a few seasons, as well as per-
manently injure your mares and
foals. The pastures stale for
want of varied stocking, and horse-
flesh goes from bad to worse on
them as the seasons run on. They
exhibit a contrast of surface, which
must be seen and studied to be
understood. One part is rough
and almost fit for meadow; another
eaten as short as the poor animals
can gnaw it. The neglected por-
tion is so Vermox Tablet staled by the presence
of dung that nothing will persuade
horses to eat it as pasture or as
hay, do . what you will with it.
The shorter, or eaten portion, is
much less staled, thanks to a
certain carefulness on the part of
the animals, but it is most un-
suitable food for valuable stock.
Grass can be too closely eaten by
hungry, half- poisoned horses to be
at its best, even when that best is
but poor. It is true enough that
both sheep and cattle rob the
horses, where they have not a
sufficient range. Nothing likes
the long sour grass of staled
horse-paddocks. They all know
the difference between good and
bad grass ; and every kind of
stock suffers by cleaning up the
pastures, let the ground be as
pure as it may. But where the
horses have a sufficient range of
sweet grass per head to begin
with, they will take good care
with both teeth and hoofs that
neither sheep nor stock take from
them the best the ground can give.
Studsmen are not graziers.
Why should we expect it of
them ? They have been trained
in a remarkably narrow groove —
to watch and study their animal,
and nothing else. There are
plenty of books of the life, his-
tory, breeding, and training of the
racer, but not one of them has
ever considered its natural Buy Vermox Online food-
supply in a scientific, or even in
an intelligent, manner. To the
horse grower grass has ever been,
and is, grass, a matter unworthy
of careful study. The purity and
quality of turf are matters that
the average studsman has never
heard of, or seen discussed in print.
Personal convenience only has
been considered at stud -farms,
and, as a result, the pastures have
been absolutely ignored. To the
untrained eye one Vermox Worm Tablets piece of turf is
much the same as another,, a pure
unsoiled pasture not very unlike a
badly staled one ; and convenient
handiness being the only rule
which has governed the formation
of stud enclosures, the wider pas-
ture fields have been cut up by
fences into paddocks, of a greater
or lesser size, according to their
distance from home. If they are
very near the boxes, from two to
322
BAILY S MAGAZINE.
[Mat
five acres has been considered
large enough. It is a very easy
matter to turn out and collect
brood mares or foals which are in
such little enclosures near at
hand ; and it is a great bother
iat times in our uncertain climate
to take them further afield and
fetch them home at short notice.
As a result we find brood mares
of the greatest value in the finest
weather on absolutely inadequate
pasturage. We have seen as many
as five in -foal mares on four acres
of ground ; and the paddock was
not pure soil — very far from it —
but grass which for a great number
of years had been treated in the
same way. This is not the case
at one stud only, but at many ; if
it were not for certain honourable
exceptions we know of, we might
safely say all. The thoroughbred
breeders of England would recoup
themselves over and over again
for the outlay, if they paid a
silent -tongued master grazier and
specialist in grass- lore to drop
down several times a year without
warning on their studs, and report