When taken from grass to warm stables, and put upon rich constipating food, horses frequently become diseased. Some catch cold, some suffer inflammation in the eyes, some take swelled legs, cracked heels, grease, thrushes, founder, surfeit, or a kind of mange. These are very common, and physic is often, indeed generally, given to prevent them. They are produced by a com-bination of circumstances; by sudden transition from gentle exercise to indolence or exciting work; from a temperate to a stimulating diet; from a pure, cool, and moving atmosphere, to an air comparatively corrupt, hot, and stagnant. These changes must be made; they are to a certain extent unavoidable, but it is not in all cases neces?ary that they be made suddenly. It is the rapid transition from one thing to another and different thing, that does all the mischief. If it were effected by slow degrees, the evils would be avoided, and there would be less need, or no need, for those medicines which are given to prevent them.

During the first week the temperature of the stable ought to be little different from that of the external air. Subsequently it may be raised, by slow degrees, till it is as warm as the work or other circumstances demand. The horse should not at first be clothed, and his first clothing should be tight. Grooming may commence on the first day; but it is not good to expose the skin very quickly by a thorough dressing. The food should be laxative, consisting of bran-mashes, oats, and hay, but no beans, or very few. Walking exercise, twice a day, is absolutely necessary for keeping the legs clean, and it assists materially in preventing plethora.

The time required for inuring a horse to stable treatment depends upon several circumstances. If taken home in warm weather, the innovation, so far as the temperature and purity of the air are concerned, may be completed in about two weeks. If not very lean, the horse's skin may be well cleaned in the first week; and to clean it, he must have one or two gentle sweats, sufficient to detach and dissolve the dust, mud, and oily matter, which adhere to the skin, and glue the hairs together. All this, or as much of it as possible, must be scraped off while the horse is warm and perspiring. If allowed to get dry before scraping, he is just where he was. If the weather be cold, there need be no great hu about cleaning him completely.

The propriety of giving physic after grazing has been often questioned. In the stable its utility is generally acknowledged. In books it is sometimes condemned as pernicious, sometimes as useless. The grooms say that physic prevents swelled legs, bad eyes, and other plethoric affections to which horses are so prone after being stabled. But some people - among whom we often find medical practitioners - who have more science than sense in these matters, declare that they can not understand how physic should do anything of this kind. Perhaps it is no great matter whether they understand it or not. The question is, has the physic the power ascribed to it? It has. There are many cases in which physic is not required; there are some in which it is improper; some in which it is absolutely demanded; and many in which it is useful. It is given too indiscriminately, and generally before it is wanted.

To a lusty horse, one or two doses may be given for the purpose of reducing him, for removing superfluous fat and flesh. The physic may be strong, sufficiently so to produce copious purgation. It empties the bowels, takes up the car case, and gives freedom to respiration; it promotes absorp tion, and expels the juices which embarrass exertion. Work, sweating, and a spare diet of condensed food, will produce these effects without the aid of physic. But purgation shortens the time of training, and it saves the legs. If the horses must be rapidly prepared for work, with as little hazard as possible to his legs, he must have physic. The first dose may be given on the day he comes from grass; the others, if more than one be necessary, at intervals of eight or ten clear days.

A lean horse, newly from grass, requires no physic till he has been stabled for several days, and perhaps not then. By the time the horse has acquired flesh sufficient to stand training, his bowels are void of grass, and his belly small enough to permit freedom of respiration. At the end of a fortnight or three weeks, the lean horse ought to be decidedly lustier. If too much so, if acquiring flesh too rapidly, one dose of physic may be given, strong enough to produce smart purgation, and prevent the evils I have spoken of as arising from plethora. If the horse is not taking on flesh so quickly as he should, he may have two, perhaps three mild doses of physic, just strong enough to produce one or two watery or semifluid evacuations. If the horse eat a great deal without improving in condition, he is probably troubled with worms, and half a drachm of calomel may be added to each dose of physic. If not feeding well, there is probably a torpid state of the digestive apparatus, produced by a bad or deficient diet. In such a case mild physic is still proper, and in addition, the horse may have a few tonic balls between the setting of one dose, and the administration of another.

Four drachms of gentian, two of ginger, and one of tartar emetic, made into a ball with honey, form a very useful tonic. One of these may be given every day, or every second day, for a fortnight. If not im proved, or improving under these, the horse requires a veterinary surgeon.

In some places the horse is bled upon coming from grass, with what intention or what effect I can not tell. I should think that the operation can not be very necessary to any horse, and to a lean one it may be pernicious. If required at all, it is probably after the horse is stabled and acquiring flesh too rapidly.

The Mode of Grazing Farm-Horses requires a little notice. Other horses are sent to pasture, and, with few exceptions, remain at it for days or weeks without interruption. But those employed in agriculture are pastured in three different ways. By one the horse is constantly at grass, except during his hours of work; he is put out at night, is brought in next morning, goes to work for two or three hours, and is then returned to pasture for about two hours; in the afternoon he again goes to work, which may be concluded at five or six o'clock, and from that time till he is wanted next morning the horse is kept at grass. By another mode, the horse is turned out only at night. During the day he is soiled in the stable at his resting intervals. When work is over for the day, he is sent out till next morning. By the third mode, which is generally allowed to be the best, the horse is turned to grass only once a week. He is pastured from the time his work is finished on Saturday night till it recommences on Monday morning.

If the horses have anything like work, the first two modes of grazing are, I think, objectionable. There is much expenditure of labor in procuring the food, and there is a great loss of time. It may cost the horse four or five hours' good work to cut down the grass he eats. A man armed with a sythe will do the same work with far less labor, and in a few minutes. If there be nothing else for the horse to do, it is very right to make him gather his own food. But, otherwise, it is absurd to exhaust his strength and time in doing that which a man can do so much more easily and quickly. Besides this expenditure of the horse's time and strength, the loss of manure, and the damage done to pasture by the feet, ought to be considered.

The third mode of grazing appears to be less objectionable The horses have no field labor on Sunday; if the pasture be good, the weather favorable, and the horses not fatigued, they are better at grass than in the house.

In Scotland, the road-horses are sometimes put to grass on Sunday. The practice has nothing that I know of to recommend it. The weekly work of these horses in general demands the rest which Sunday brings; and if they run at a fast pace, as all coach-horses do now, they are apt to eat so much grass, and carry such a load in their belly, that on Monday they are easily over-marked. The breathing is impeded unless the horses purge, which a few do. They often come from grass as haggard and dejected as if they had done twice their ordinary work the day before.