460 LIGHT. 



The farmer should not lose any of the urine. It is from the dung of the 

 horse that he derives a principal and the most valuable part of his manure. 

 It is that which earliest takes on the process of putrefaction, and forms one of 

 the strongest and most durable dressings. That which is most of all con- 

 cerned with the rapidity and the perfection of the decomposition is the urine. 



Humanity and interest, as well as the appearance of the stable, should 

 induce the proprietor of the horse to place a moderate quantity of litter 

 under him during the day. The farmer who wants to convert every otherwise 

 useless substance into manure, will have additional reason for adopting this 

 practice : especially as he does not confine himself to that to which in towns 

 and in gentlemen's stables custom seems to have limited the bed of the horse. 

 Pea and bean-haum, and potato-tops, and heath, occupy in the stable of the 

 farmer, during a part of the year, the place of wheaten and oaten straw. It 

 should, however, be remembered, that these substances are disposed more easily 

 to ferment and putrify than straw, and therefore should be more carefully 

 examined and oftener removed. It is the faulty custom of some farmers to let 

 the bed accumulate until it reaches almost to the horse's belly, and the bottom 

 of it is a mass of dung. If there were not often many a hole and cranny through 

 which the wind can enter and disperse the foul air, the health of the animal 

 would materially suffer. 



LIGHT. 



This neglected branch of stable-management is of far more consequence than 

 is generally imagined ; and it is particularly neglected by those for whom these 

 treatises are principally designed. The farmer's stable isfrequently destitute of any 

 glazed window, and has only a shutter, which is raised in warm weather, and 

 closed when the weather becomes cold. When the horse is in the stable only 

 during a few hours in the day, this is not of so much consequence, nor of so 

 much, probably, with regard to horses of slow work ; but to carriage-horses and 

 hackneys, so far, at least, as the eyes are concerned, a dark stable is little less 

 injurious than a foul and heated one. In order to illustrate this, reference 

 may be made to the unpleasant feeling, and the utter impossibility of seeing 

 distinctly, when a man suddenly emerges from a dark place into the full blaze 

 of day. The sensation of mingled pain and giddiness is not soon forgotten ; 

 and some minutes pass before the eye can accommodate itself to the increased 

 light. If this were to happen every day, or several times in the day, the sight 

 would be irreparably injured, or possibly blindness would ensue. Can we 

 wonder, then, that the horse, taken from a dark stable into a glare of light, 

 feeling, probably, as we should do under similar circumstances, and unable for 

 a considerable time to see anything around him distinctly, should become a 

 starter, or that the frequently repeated violent effect of sudden light should 

 induce inflammation of the eye so intense as to terminate in blindness ? There 

 is, indeed, no doubt that horses kept in dark stables are frequently no- 

 torious starters, and that abominable habit has been properly traced to this 

 cause. 



Farmers know, and should profit by the knowledge, that the darkness of the 

 stable is not unfrequently a cover for great uncleanliness. A glazed window, 

 with leaden divisions between the small panes, would not cost much, and would 

 admit a degree of light somewhat more approaching to that of day, and at the 

 same time would render the concealment of gross inattention and want of clean- 

 liness impossible. 



If plenty of light is admitted, the walls of the stable, and especially that 

 portion of them which is before the horse's head, must not be of too glaring a 



