IT is evident that the protective power possessed by the coat of a horse is proportionate to its interference with his capacity for work. In fact, a saddle or harness horse with a long coat is like unto a man who wears a warm suit of clothes which he is unable to take off when he engages in physical exercise. This disadvantageous condition in the case of a horse, can, as we all know, be obviated by shortening the coat and supplying him with adequate clothing to be worn when he is not in work. He will then be in the good position of an athlete who can fortify himself against cold by putting on clothes, or prepare himself for work by taking them off; and, besides, his grooming will require much less labour than if his coat was long. When a horse is neither groomed nor housed, he will of course need the natural protection which his coat affords him. The artificial shortening of the coat not only improves the working capacity of long-coated horses, but it also acts beneficially on their general health when they are kept in warm stables. In such cases, it is more reasonable to blame the unsanitary state of the stable, than to praise the good effect of the reduction of the hair. We may conclude that shortening the coat is an advantage with all long-coated horses which are required to be in high working efficiency, or which are kept in warm stables. In these circumstances, the warmer the climate or season, the greater is the benefit obtained from shortening the coat. If clothing cannot be provided in cold weather, as might be the case on some poor farms, the coat should not be removed.

The wearing of a heavy coat by a horse which is doing severe work, distresses him out of all proportion to the amount of "dead weight" he carries; because the moisture-retaining power of the coat is so great, that when the animal sweats, evaporation will go on slowly, and consequently, as long as the labour continues, the lungs will fail to obtain adequate relief from the action of the skin, and the amount of evaporation will be insufficient to keep down the internal temperature to a healthy limit. Hence, fatigue thus induced, will be accompanied by more or less feverishness and will be of a more distressing nature, than if the coat was short. It is instructive to note, that the amount of perspiration on the surface of the body is not a correct measure of the amount of evaporation that is taking place, as we see in cases of men respectively exposed to dry heat and moist heat (p. 17). We may therefore reasonably assume that the fact of a thick equine coat being wet with sweat, is no proof that evaporation of perspiration is proceeding more rapidly from it, than from the thin coat of another horse which has scarcely "turned a hair." I have seen some good instances of extraordinary "reversal of form" in racehorses caused by clipping.

The only objection I see to clipping as a means of shortening the coat, is that it leaves the ends of the hair in a truncated, instead of a finely pointed condition, and that it diminishes the pliability of the hairs. Consequently, skin which is covered by short-cut hair is, as most persons know in their own cases, far more liable to become irritated by friction or contact, than if the hair had been left in its natural state, or even moderately long. This fact has often been impressed upon me, when, for purposes of coolness, in tropical climates, I have had the hair of my head cut as close as possible with a barber's machine. On such occasions, I always found that if a fly alighted on my head and walked over the short hairs, it caused great irritation; although such an occurrence would probably have been unnoticed by me, if my hair had been at its usual length. The frequent friction which the hair of the legs and especially of the pasterns endures from objects which it meets when a horse is at work, is no doubt sufficient in many cases to bring on cracked heels and mud fever. Hence the reasonableness of abstaining from running the clipping machine over the legs and that portion of the back on which the saddle rests. Also, the ends of the clipped hairs, owing to their blunt shape and want of pliability, cannot lie in such close contact with each other as unclipped ones would do; and they accordingly "stare," more or less, and cause the coat to be penetrated comparatively easily by water, dust and other foreign bodies. From the nature of its action, singeing is less open to the objections in question than clipping. The best means for reducing the weight of the coat is evidently hand-rubbing (p. 326), which may not always be sufficient for the purpose in view, especially when the coat is heavy and strong, and the groom over-worked or lazy. Even when a coat which has been subjected to a course of good hand-rubbing, appears somewhat longer than if it had been clipped, we must not take for granted that the reduction of weight has been less; because hand-rubbing acts more by thinning the coat, than by reducing its length. Even in a moderately cold climate like that of England, daily good hand - rubbing of the body, which entails more labour than could be spared in ordinary stables, would be sufficient for reducing the coats of the majority of well-bred horses; and those of the remainder could be kept short by the occasional help of a singeing lamp. Although clipping is an inferior means of reducing the coat to that I have just mentioned, it is the best one for horses kept in stables which are short of help. If the groom can singe well, I think it will be better for him to keep down the length of the coat by means of the lamp, used, say, every ten days, than by clipping. Keeping the coat thin by means of hot stables and an excess of warm clothing, should not be allowed; because both these means injuriously affect the health of the animal. Whatever way a horse's coat is kept short or thin, his rider or driver should take precautions against his catching a chill, when he is outside during cold weather, by keeping him moving, or by throwing a rug over him, as the case may demand.

As regards expedition, the power clipping machine, of which there are many good varieties in the market, is as superior to the hand machine, as the hand machine is to the old scissors and comb. As far as the health of a horse is concerned, it is an advantage, as I have indicated, not to clip below the knees and hocks, and not to clip that part of the back upon which the saddle rests. In this omission, in order to be consistent, I ought to include that part of the chest over which the girths pass; but the advantage thus obtained, would perhaps be more than counterbalanced by the uncouth appearance which the resulting band of hair would give the animal. As the hair which is inside the ears, guards these organs from injury by the entrance of foreign bodies; it should not be removed, beyond, perhaps, placing the edges of each ear together, and then cutting off the hair which projects outside the opening of the ear. If it is imperative to clip the legs, and one of them happens to be somewhat more "gummy" than the other, we may adopt the old coping plan of using a thicker comb (a bone one for instance) when going over the sound back tendons and suspensory ligament with the scissors, than when shortening the hair on the infirm leg, so as to give a nearly similar appearance, as regards size, to both legs.

In the clipping of the legs, we should remember that the tuft of hair which falls from the back of the fetlock, acts as a protection to the back of the pasterns, which is a part very liable to suffer from the bad effects of irritation and chill, especially when its natural guard has been removed.

If appearances have to be studied, we may delay the autumn clipping until the coat has attained its full length, say, about the beginning of November. The presence of particularly long hairs ("cat hairs") interspersed through the coat, will indicate the completion of the growth. A premature exposure of the skin will spoil the look of the subsequent coat. The animal will probably require a second clipping before the end of the year.

For singeing, a gas lamp is generally preferred to a mineral oil one; because its flame can be regulated with greater precision. It has the draw-back of its heat being more intense, and consequently it is more liable to burn the horse than an oil lamp. The heat from the flame of methylated spirits is more feeble than that from burning paraffin oil. The long hair about the lower jaw of a horse may be singed off by means of a lighted candle or taper, such as is used by barbers for singeing.