248 THE HORSE BOOK. 



I do not like concrete floors for horses to 

 stand on. Concrete is cold and absorbs heat 

 quickly. A floor of the kind makes what the 

 Scotch call "cold lying " for any animal. The 

 best floor for standing stalls is made of con- 

 crete with a portable floor of narrow slats 

 nailed to cross-pieces of about an inch in thick- 

 ness. This sort of a floor, plentifully bedded, 

 permits the liquids voided to pass readily away. 

 The concrete floor should of course have some 

 slight slope on this account, but never much. 

 A horse likes to stand with his head uphill a 

 little bit. In boxstalls the best floor is hard 

 clay clay that will make good bricks. Lay 

 a foundation of coarse gravel and then tamp 

 down four to six inches of clay. Nothing is 

 much more abominable in a stable than a floor 

 of rotten old planks half -worn through and the 

 decomposing urine oozing upward whenever 

 the horse steps around. No amount of good 

 bedding can counteract the hurtful effect of 

 such filth. 



Recurring again to the necessity of having 

 stables well ventilated and well lighted, let the 

 windows be large and many. Never under any 

 circumstances place a little cubby aperture 

 directly in front of each horse's head. Thou- 

 sands of barns have been spoiled and thousands 

 of horses have been ruined by this senseless, 

 though fortunately now obsolete method of ven- 

 tilating and lighting a stable. Make the doors 



