Horses are sometimes turned out all winter to a place called a straw-yard. It is, properly speaking, a manure-yard, a dung-pit, a place fitter for manufacturing manure than lor lodging horses. It often contains oxen, calves, colts, and swine, as well as horses. It is generally destitute of shelter, and the food consists of straw and hay, or of straw only. Often there is not even an allowance of water, except when the man finds it convenient and not disagreeable to carry it People who bargain for a winter's run, or imprisonment, in a straw-yard, do sometimes pay for a small daily allowance of grain, which, however, is not always given.

A winter's keep in the straw-yard is going a good deal out of fashion, at least with people not themselves proprietors of such a place; but it is still too common. The horse is not wanted till spring, or perhaps some lameness requires rest for two or three months, and, as he can be kept in a straw-yard at little cost, to that place he is sent, abandoned to neglect, and frequently to treatment worse than neglect. He returns home a skeleton; he has a cough, which is cured with difficulty, or not at all; his feet are destroyed by thrushes; his skin is covered by lice, and his bowels are full of worms.

When the horse must be sent to such a filthy place, he needs neither physic nor bleeding. However lusty, he will require all the blood and flesh he can carry before winter expires. The only preparation he requires refers to the feet and to temperature. The frogs should be coated with pitch or tar. If very thrushy, they should be covered with leather soles well stopped up. The horse should be well inured to cold. He needs more preparation than when going to grass; a straw-yard does not demand, nor permit, the exercise which a pastured horse must take. When he returns he must be treated in nearly the same way as after a winter's run at grass. More time is necessary to confer working condition; and greater care regarding hot stables. Some treatment will probably be requisite to remove lice, and to expel worms.

Every straw-yard should have a covered shed, dry and clean. It should have a constant supply of water, which should be entirely changed every day, and placed in elevated troughs, that it may not receive the evacuations. The fodder should be placed in racks under cover, and the owner should visit his horse every now and then.