The horses employed in the field vary so much in size and breeding, and are treated so variously in different places, that it is difficult to give any useful account of the mode in which they are fed. Those who follow the hounds only once or twice a month usually do so upon their hack, an ordinary road-horse, whose labors as a hunter do not require any particular difference in his feeding. During the hunting season he may receive more than his usual allowance of grain, but in other respects he is treated as a saddle-horse. He is stabled all the year, and his work, never very great, is not such in winter as to demand the repose which is given to hunters for two or three months in summer.

But in all hunting establishments the horses are treated in a different manner. Their labors for the season generally commence about the end of October or beginning of November, and terminate in March or April. From this time till the month of July, when training for the ensuing winter commences, the horses are idle, or nearly so. Hence there is much difference between the summer and the winter feeding. In winter the food consists of oats, beans, and hay; carrots and barley are sometimes, though very seldom, added to these.

But there are two modes of summering the hunter: by one he is turned to pasture, and fed entirely upon grass; by anoth-er, he is kept almost constantly within doors, receiving a little grass, some hay, and a small allowance of grain. The last is the mode recommended and introduced by Nimrod. Former ly it was the custom to turn all hunters to grass as soon as hunting was over; but in many parts of England this practice has been abandoned. For a long time it was universal. It was supposed that the horses were as well at grass as they could be in the stable, and they were kept at much less cost. Possibly some people might believe that summer grazing was necessary for the horse's health, but that does not appear to have been insisted on until Nimrod began to deny the propriety of turning out. Numerous scribblers appeared to oppose him. It was contended that a summer's run at grass is absolutely necessary, exclusive of its economy. The labors of the winter, it was said, have shattered the constitution, the legs, and the feet. The horse has been injured by his work. Rest and his natural food alone can restore him to usefulness. The moisture of the ground is good for his hoofs, and the open air for his lungs.

Grass is the most salubrious food the horse can have; it is cooling, refreshing, alterative; it allays the excitement produced by work and high keep; it clears away obstructions, sweetens the blood, relaxes the bowels, purges off the humors, renovates the whole body, and puts the inside to rights. Moreover, the repose which a horse obtains at grass, rectifies, braces, and strengthens, all the parts that his hard work had shaken and relaxed. Moreover, again, it would be the very death of a hunter, and very cruel, to keep him stabled all the year.

I dare say it is evident that the most of this is sad nonsense. Grass and fresh air can be given in the stable quite as well as in the field. Moisture is easily applied to the feet; and for rest, if rest be necessary, the stabled horse has decidedly the advantange..