The parfait mareschal, or Compleat farrier. Which teacheth, I. To know the shapes and goodness, as well as faults and imperfections of horses. II. The signs and causes of their diseases, the means to prevent them, their cure, and the good or bad use of purging and bleeding. III. The way to order and preserve them, when upon travel, to feed, and to dress them. IV. The art of shoeing, according to a new design of shoes, which will recover bad feet, and preserve the good. Together with a treatise, how to raise and bring up a true and beautiful race of horses: as also instructions, whereby to fit all kinds of horses with proper bits, whereof the chief draughts are represented in copper-plates. / Written originally in French by the Sieur de Solleysel Escuyer, sometime one of the overseers of the French Kings Royal Academy of Riding, near to the Hostel de Conde in Paris. And translated from the last Paris impression, by Sir William Hope of Kirkliston Kt. Lieutenat Governour of the Castle of Edinburgh. By whom is also added as a supplement to the first part, a most compendious and excellent collection of horsemanship, taken from the best and most modern writers upon that subject, such as Mr. De la Brow, Pluvinel, and the Great Duke of Newcastle. Part I.

CHAP. LI. How horses which are Fatigued, Lean, and Light-bellyed, are to be ordered and fed.

IN the Treatise of diseases or Second part, you will find remedies for horses which are Sick for having suffered too much; our business in this place, being only concerning their feeding; when a man returnes from a long journey, or the Army, with a great stable of horses, or that he hath bought horses which are harassed, lean, or light-bellyed, he must cause Curry and dress them as I have been ordering for others, but for their feeding, you must observe First, that there are horses (and even those of the greatest vigour and Mettle, which will be sometimes so lean, that their skin cleaves to their very Ribs; they may indeed eat, but they do not at all recover; therefore to fatten them you are to give them only wet Bran, and administer two Glysters to them every day, one in the Morning and another at Night, as I have ordered in the 68. Chap. of the 2d. part. and Chapters following; after which make Baths for them, according to the directions in the 35. Chap. of the 2d. part. Sect 3. and that not only for their legs, but for their whole Body, as Shoulders, Sides, Croupe, and Haunches, washing them well with the said Bath being luke-warm, which in proper and Physical terms, is to make them a fomentation; being well-bathed and washed, they are to be covered with a linnen sheet well moistned in the warm Bath, and above that with a couple of Coverings, which may for a long time keep in the heat: you are to leave them thus till next morning, that you must begin it a new again and continue it for Six or Seven dayes, you are during this procedure to feed your horse well, keeping him in a warme place if it be in the winter time, and in a temperate if in Summer, after which he will begin to mend; at the end of seven or eight dayes, you are to forbear the baths and glysters, and continue to feed him with Wet Bran, good Hay, and fresh Straw, take from him one of the two coverings which were at first put upon him, and five or six dayes after remove the other, and in place of it put on another which is more light, that so his skin which hath been made tender by bathing, may return to its natural strength and firmness, for did you not observe this precaution, the horse would immediatly Founder; so long as you make use of the bath, you are not to Curry or Comb him, but only rub him well with a hay-wisp moistned in the warm bath, for a full quarter of an hour before you begin to foment and wash him with it; if you have a mind during the use of the bath, to cause him eat every day, two ounces of the Foye or Liver of Antimony in fine powder amongst his wet bran, I assure you it will profit him much, chear up his in∣ward parts, and even open the pores of his skin, that so the vertue of the bath may the more easily penetrate it; this is the method to detatch or separate horses skins from their bones, for so long as they have them bound and cleaving hard to them, they will never fatten and become plump.

If it be in the spring time, green barley is admirable good for young horses which are over-rid, lean, and have as yet their flanks sound, although they are become con∣temptible by their being too much Fatigued.

You are to observe, that there are two sorts of green Barley, that which is sowen before Winter, called Winter-Barley (in French Esturgeon,) which is ready for eating against the end of April, and the Barley which they sow in the Month of March, and is not fit for eating until the end of May, (new stile) or a little earlyer if the Season be advanced; people give neither of these green Bar∣leys

to horses, until it be beginning to Spindle, that is to say well shot, because the would both eat too much of it, and it would also pass too quickly in their Bodie while it is so tender.

The green Barley which is sown in Winter, fattneth horses sooner than that so•••• in the Spring, but then this last Purges better, and giveth them, as we say, a ne•• Body.

So soon as this Barley is in it's Case, or beginning to Spindle, and that it is fit 〈◊〉〈◊〉 cutting, bleed your horse, and give him as much of it as he will eat, observing a wayes to cut it when the dew is upon it; to wit, 〈…〉〈…〉 before Sun-rising for 〈◊〉〈◊〉 day time, and after Sun-set for the night: You are to give it them little by little, a•• as it were but in handfulls, for after horses have once blown or breathed much up•••• it, they won't any more meddle with it; you are also, if you observe that the dew•• all exhaled, and that the Barley remaineth quite dry, to sprinkle it with a 〈◊〉〈◊〉 water, every time you give it them.

People commonly sow Barley at different times, that so they may have it as tende at the end of the Moneth, as at the beginning, because when once it cometh fully 〈◊〉〈◊〉 the Ear, it is not so profitable and wholesome; it is therefore very fit that you ca•• divide your Field into four parts, and every eight or tenth day cause sow a quart of it, for so that which is sown first will be fit for eating, when the last is only a pearing above ground; or divide your Enclosure only in three, if you intend but 〈◊〉〈◊〉 feed your horses with it for three weeks, which is sufficient for some, but then you are to cause sow it extraordinary thick, and with three times as much as for o••••••••∣ry use, because Barley which is design'd to be eaten when green, cannot possibly 〈◊〉〈◊〉 sown too thick.

There are some People, who while their horses are eating green barley, will 〈◊〉〈◊〉 suffer them to be curryed, nor allow their Litter to be changed, but suffer them 〈◊〉〈◊〉 stand among their Urine and Dung for the space of eight dayes; and this method 〈◊〉〈◊〉 pretty good for such as have their skins cleaving to their bones, or very hard and dry•• because these excrements do open the pores of the skin, and then afterwards the body transpires so much the better, but after eight dayes they should be made clean, their Litter every day renewed, and afterwards alwayes very well Curryed and drest; for I have seen several, whose skins have been fretted and cauterized, for having be•••• suffered to stand too long amongst their Dung and Urine; also if People are in a ••••∣venient place to send them once a day to the River, to wash their Legs, it will•• very well: There are few Grooms who will be of this Opinion, because they 〈◊〉〈◊〉 very glad to have so much spare time from dressing their horses, having in a ma•••• during that space nothing else ado, but to throw their meat before them.

Notes

• CHAP. LI How horses which are fatigued, lean, and light-Bel∣lyed are to be fed