MANAGEMENT. Our analysis of the stable showed the closed shed as a forcing house for disease germs, and the metalled floor as preventing a horse from resting on his feet. To copy the natural conditions of healthy range life the building needs the dry floor which {231} involves a roof, earth standings on which a horse can rest, and a wind screen to keep out bad weather. In practice this open earth-floored shed kills out the germs of disease, rests the horse, and so prevents or cures the maladies of the feet and legs which disable indoor stock. But, while the horse is fairly sound so soon as one adapts his home to the conditions required for his health; no indoor life trains either horses or horsemen for the mobility needed in campaigns. The civilized stable management with grooming and massage, clipping and singeing, docking and trimming of tails, hogging the manes, and all the practice which involves the use of clothing is excellent with the indoor horse. In the same way a hospital is good for the sick, but not the sort of gymnasium which makes men strong and hardy. The treatment makes a horse glossy and beautiful, but sensitive rather than robust. It does not make the horse an outdoor person able to face bad weather, rough feeding and long marches. For that we must consider outdoor management as applied to an outdoor horse. [Sidenote: Indoor management outdoors] The British South African Field Force lost 340,000 horses, some of them civilized, others from wild ranges. I was serving in an irregular {232} unit when a bunch of Argentine remounts arrived in camp. They showed signs of exhaustion from their voyage, but had not been pastured after their landing in Africa. The grass surrounding our camp was fairly good, free from disease, and secure from attack by day. So the officer commanding shackled the remounts in our lines, and I was punished for feeding mine with grass. There was no hay, so the horses had straight oats. As the sky cleared or clouded the weather was frosty or snowy, so the horses were blanketed. The blankets were always sodden except when they stiffened with ice. On the fourteenth day the last of these horses died. The whole was a beautiful exhibition of stable management applied to outdoor horses without a stable. I do not remember an instance of army authorities consulting range horsemen as to the management of range horses on any range. Neither has it occurred to any army that the outdoor horseman may have useful knowledge concerning the outdoor horse. And yet the sacrifice of 340,000 horses might have aroused misgivings as to the Army system of management. [Sidenote: Pastured horses]