STABLE MANAGEMENT. 7 



like a hothouse cannot be so hardy and indifferent to the 

 weather, as the cooler treated one, especially in standing about 

 at covert-side, or waiting those almost interminable periods 

 which ladies seem to think necessary for their shopping 

 enterprises, in the muddy streets. At the same time, I am 

 no advocate for keeping the stable at so low a temperature 

 that a horse's coat sticks up the wrong way, and he looks 

 pinched and miserable. One system is as wrong as the other. 

 Let your place be warm, but well ventilated ; and, should it 

 be one of the many stables I have seen, where there is only 

 the choice of " being suffocated, or else blown right off your 

 seat," as Mr. Justice Denman once observed of the Old Bailey 

 Courts, then let your choice of the two evils fall upon the 

 warmer side of the question ; less harm will come of that than 

 the other. Do not permit draughts under any circumstances, 

 and especially any about the animal's head. A point which 

 is continually overlooked is the drainage ; this ought to be 

 most carefully attended to, and the drain kept clear by a 

 liberal supply of clean water being sent down the channel 

 every morning. Always put a horse in a loose box in pre- 

 ference to a stall ; he will find it far less monotonous ta 

 wander round and stretch his limbs than to gaze, without 

 intermission, on a blank wall, and besides this, will rest more 

 comfortably at night. For the tired hunter there is no place- 

 like a box for recuperating his exhausted energies. Assuming, 

 then, that your stable is warm, clean, well ventilated, and 

 fairly light, we may pass on to the important question of 

 feeding. For fast work, such as the hunter is called upon 

 to do, old oats cannot be beaten. If a young animal, it i& 

 not, as a rule, advisable to give beans ; but with older horses, 

 especially when extra hard worked, or in poor condition, they 

 will be found invaluable ; let them be split, as in that state 

 they are more digestible, and not so easily bolted. The 

 quantity of food given should vary with each particular 

 horse, but, as a general rule, a couple of bushels of old oats 

 a week, and three to four bushels of chaff, will be found, 

 with a peck of split beans, about the proper amount to 

 keep them in good hard condition. Bran-mashes twice a 

 week — given hot in the winter — are very beneficial, but 

 should never be looked upon as a substitute for hard food. 

 If a good "doer," one truss of old upland hay a week in 

 addition to the foregoing will do no harm ; but never more. 



