away will thereby be also greatly reduced. These facts, although they may not be found mentioned in any one of those prize essays that are written in the ‘follow-my-leader style’ which ‘Impecuniosus’ so much deprecates, may be found useful for nervous men to know and keep in mind. Some people conjure up fancied difficulties. Fancy and theory have helped to bring our horses’ feet and legs to their present state, which the generality of people find to be a very unsatisfactory one.
There are countries possessing vast tracts of grasscovered plains, on which horses are extensively bred, which from their great abundance are there of low value. The steppes of Russia, the grass runs of Australia, the prairies of some of the Anglo-American States, the savannahs of Uruguay and of the Argentine Republic are instances of such. In the last-mentioned, ‘fine colts, from three to five years old, can be bought at from 1l. to 4l., and mares at from 4s. to 20s.’ These horses, which are unshod, are those upon whose backs the ‘Grauchos’ perform their well-known skilful feats of ‘lassoing,’ &c., when cattle-driving—the unshod horse being endowed with an activity and sureness of foot that renders him highly valuable for their purposes.
A gentleman writing in a contemporary, on the subject of cattle-driving, says: ‘In Australia, in wet weather, an unshod horse is both a pleasant and a safe mount. Many a roll over I have had after cattle on a shod horse, when the country was soft above and hard below ’—as some English race-courses
