This, however, must be admitted a very inferior substitute for natural pasture; as repeated experiments, and constant observation, hesitate not to pronounce the NATIVE (in its nutritive and exhilarating property) superior to every _artificial_ grass hitherto introduced. The quantities of the latter grown in various parts of the kingdom (and in some it cannot be avoided) is immense; but no doubt need be entertained of the nutritious superiority of the native meadow grass, whether green or dry, if it is cleanly cultivated, and well got in. It is very much the custom in and about London, to send horses to what are called the SALT MARSHES in Essex, from whence some arrive in tolerable condition; but where, from their contiguity to town, or other causes, the land is overstocked, and the summer dry, they come up in a state of wretched emaciation, as if passing in mournful procession to some neighbouring dog kennel. Those marshes, at a proper distance from town, where they are free from offensive filth, and the pasture plentiful, are remarkable for their peculiar property of attenuation, in altering the property of the blood, promoting the secretions, purifying the system, and invigorating the frame. They are well known to act as perfectly as the most powerful antimonial or mercurial alterative, in obliterating the remains of cutaneous disease; and this is readily accounted for by their first effects, which is for many days equal to a state of medical purgation; to which, however, the subject soon becomes superior in health, strength, and an accumulation of flesh; demonstrating the process to have been a very salutary interposition.
Those who wish their horses to avail themselves of every advantage to be derived from SOILING, will certainly retain it in memory, that TWO months in the prime and _early_ part of the season, will be preferable to THREE at the _latter_ end: a dry summer, short pasture, and the infinity of flies, and other insects, constitute a very sensible drawback upon the privilege of liberty, as well as upon the restoration of FLESH, and the renovation of STRENGTH. Horses in a plethoric state, with a cough, full of blood, or the relics of disease about them, will most likely come up in a much worse state than when turned out. Horses of this description should undergo _bleeding_, and proper evacuations, previous to their being set at liberty; as the nocturnal collapsion of the porous system might probably repel the perspirative matter upon the overloaded vessels, and thereby render the remedy (in _turning out_) worse than the disease.