THE VICE OF CODDLING.
It is probable that most domestic animals are too much coddled. On the most perfectly equipped farm I ever saw—
it was financed by one of the Dreyfuses, near Paris—a very famous 'steeplechaser Was run wild all the winter, and looked in the very roughest sort of condition ; but his long period of success was attributed chiefly to this hardy, unfussy out-of- door treatment. Again, a specialist in poultry at the splendid Macdonald farm centre near Montreal attributed his great success with poultry to his system of housing the birds. They lived in a building of which one side was wholly exposed to the air and weather. It is Mr. Hosier's experience that his out-of-door cows grow thicker coats than other people's cows, and so protect themselves against chill and various maladies, by the most natural means. They do not need, like the cow in Cranford, to wear great-coats. It is curious how a douche of cold air improves the coat. The oddest example is seen in the rats that occasionally escape detection in cold- storage chambers. They have been known to grow bait several inches in length.
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