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 190 the result of his practice and experience, which does not seem to have taught any one very much, for we find modern writers who quote him shifting out of the question by stating that he had not our modern artificial hard roads to deal with. From his style of writing we may infer that he would have been glad to shake hands with Macadam, or even with a pavior that would extend his stable floors out-of-doors as far as possible. He would not have asked for a steam-roller to smooth down loose stones, because he knew that his horses would prefer them to the soft mire encountered continually when in campaign, at which times they could not always get the benefit of the hard floors, on the use of which in barracks he laid so great stress.

The universal idea nowadays is that horses must have something ‘nice and soft to stand upon’ when they are not at work, and that this something should have smoothness also connected with it; some people even argue that a stable without straw spread over it in the daytime looks naked and comfortless. This is conventionality. In Spain the best-appointed stables are clean swept by day, and the presence of an odd straw knocking about would be considered slovenliness. Tastes differ according to established customs or prevailing fashions; but the hygiene of the horse should never be sacrificed to such empty and variable things as fashions or appearances of any kind.

‘Herts’ seems unwilling to believe that unshod horses could trot for miles together over roads