Horses in warfare of today's English saddle. Both the Scythians and Assyrians used pads with added felt attached with a surcingle or girth around the horse's barrel for increased security and comfort. Xenophon mentioned the use of a padded cloth on cavalry mounts as early as the 4th century BC. The saddle with a solid framework, or "tree", provided a bearing surface to protect the horse from the weight of the rider, but was not widespread until the 2nd century AD. However, it made a critical difference, as horses could carry more weight when distributed across a solid saddle tree. A solid tree,
Girth (graph theory) Girth (graph theory) In graph theory, the girth of a graph is the length of a shortest cycle contained in the graph. If the graph does not contain any cycles (i.e. it's an acyclic graph), its girth is defined to be infinity. For example, a 4-cycle (square) has girth 4. A grid has girth 4 as well, and a triangular mesh has girth 3. A graph with girth four or more is triangle-free. A cubic graph (all vertices have degree three) of girth that is as small as possible is known as a -cage (or as a (3,)-cage). The Petersen