Some horses are difficult to saddle. When the girths are tightened, or as the man is in the act of tightening them, the horse suddenly drops on his knees as if he were shot. Sometimes he rears up and falls backward. This is a rare occurrence. It is generally termed a vice, but it is difficult to understand it in that light. The horse sometimes cuts his knees to the bone by the violence with which he falls, and I should think he would not do that if he could help it. 1 am inclined to believe that the fall is involuntary, but how a tight girth should produce it, can not be told. In one horse that often, but not always threw himself down when the girths were tightened, I thought I could discover something like a broken rib, yet it was doubtful; I could not be sure about it.

Whatever be the cause, the horse should stand deep in litter when he is saddled, and the girths should be tightened by degrees. Let him stand a few minutes after the saddle is on, before the girths are full drawn, and never make them needlessly tight.

There are one or two other stable vices so unimportant, that I think they deserve no notice. Refusing the crupper and shying the bridle are among them. These, and similar trifles, can hardly be called vices. They require a little tact, perhaps, but no particular mode of treatment.

On the Habits and Vices connected with Work, I had written a section of some length; but the press of other matter compels me to exclude this, which belongs to horsemanship more than to Stable Economy.