This will conquer him better than anything you could do, and without any possible danger of hurting himself or you either, for you can tie up his foot and sit down and look at him until he gives up.  When you find that he is conquered, go to him, let down his foot, rub his leg with your hand, caress him and let him rest a little, then put it up again.  Repeat this a few times, always putting up the same foot, and he will soon learn to travel on three legs so that you can drive him some distance.  As soon as he gets a little used to this way of traveling, put on your harness and hitch him to a sulky.  If he is the worst kicking horse that ever raised a foot you need not be fearful of his doing any damage while he has one foot up, for he cannot kick, neither can he run fast enough to do any harm.  And if he is the wildest horse that ever had harness on, and has run away every time he has been hitched, you can now hitch him in a sulky and drive him as you please.  And if he wants to run you can let him have the lines, and the whip too, with perfect safety, for he cannot go but a slow gait on three legs, and will soon be tired and willing to stop; only hold him enough to guide him in the right direction, and he will soon be tired and willing to stop at the word.  Thus you will effectually cure him at once of any further notion of running off.  Kicking horses have always been the dread of every body; you always hear men say, when they speak about a bad horse, “I don’t care what he does, so he don’t kick.”  This new method is an effectual cure for this worst of all habits.  There are plenty of ways by which you can hitch a kicking horse and force him to go, though he kicks all the time; but this don’t have any good effect towards breaking him, for we know that horses kick because they are afraid of what is behind them, and when they kick against it and it hurts them they will only kick the harder, and this will hurt them still more and make them remember the scrape much longer, and make it still more difficult to persuade them to have any confidence in any thing dragging behind them ever after.

But by this new method you can hitch them to a rattling sulky, plow, wagon, or anything else in its worst shape.  They may be frightened at first, but cannot kick or do any thing to hurt themselves, and will soon find that you do not intend to hurt them, and then they will not care any thing more about it.  You can then let down the leg and drive along gently without any farther trouble.  By this new process a bad kicking horse can be learned to go gentle in harness in a few hours’ time.

ON BALKING.