8 The Management and Treatment of the Horse, 



through the roof. I don't mean those stove pipes so 

 commonly used, which are not more than six inches in 

 diameter, but shafts at least two feet square to carry off 

 the foul air and ammonia that constantly arises in the 

 stable. I have seen some of the stables which were 

 possessed of these blessings, made into dens as foul as it 

 is possible to conceive, by the ignorance of grooms who 

 had charge of them, keeping the air passages entirely 

 stopped with hay or other litter to keep the stable hot, 

 to make the horse's coat shine like silk and lay close, not 

 thinking that the same animal had to go out of his hot 

 stable on a cold wet day, and perhaps stand in the wet 

 and cold at a covert side for an hour at a stretch, 

 shivering like a dog in a wet sack ; and the moment the 

 cold air caught tha horse his coat would be up on end, 

 and looking like a monster porcupine. It is an easy 

 thing for a man to put on a great coat on a cold day ; 

 then, if the weather is cold, why not put extra clothing 

 on the horse to keep him warm ? Never resort to the 

 false economy of keeping the stable hot at the expense 

 of the health of your animal, or you will find yourself 

 in the position of many grooms, who have their horses 

 always delicate feeders, and for ever coughing with any 

 change of the wind. Then they commence to put their 

 arms down their horse's throat every morning to give 

 him a cough ball, made of linseed meal and treacle, and 

 enough nitre and camphor to make a taste and smell, 

 and possessing the same virtues as the old woman's 

 bread pills, which she warranted to do neither good or 

 harm* 



I went to look over some stables not 100 miles from 



