ILLUSTRATED GUIDE. 165 



cares about his enjoyment, will not object to a coat a 

 little longer, and a little roughened when the wintry wind 

 blows bleak. The coat, however, not to be so long as to be 

 unsightly, and warm clothing even in a cool stable, will 

 with plenty of honest grooming, keep the hair sufficiently 

 smooth and glossy to satisfy the most fastidious. 



The over-heated air of a close stable saves much of this 

 grooming, and therefore the idle attendant unscrupu- 

 lously sacrifices the health and safety of the horse. When 

 we have presently to treat of the hair and skin of the 

 horse, this will be placed in a somewhat different point of 

 view. If the stable is close, the air will not only be hot, 

 but foul. The breathing of every animal contaminates ; 

 and when in, the course of the night, with every aperture 

 stopped, it passes again and again through the lungs, the 

 blood cannot undergo its proper and healthy change ; di- 

 gestion will not be so perfectly performed, and all the func- 

 tions of life are injured. Let the owner of a valuable 

 horse think of his passing twenty or twenty-two out of 

 twenty-four hours in this debilitating atmosphere. Na- 

 ture does wonders in enabling every animal to accommo- 

 date itself to the situation in which it is placed, and the 

 horse that lives in the stable, even suffers less from it than 

 would scarcely be conceived possible ; but he does not 

 and cannot possess the power and hardihood which he 

 would acquire under other circumstances. This air of 

 the improperly close and heated stable is still further con- 

 taminated by the urine and dung, which rapidly ferment 

 there, and give out stimulating and unwholesome vapors. 

 When a person first enters an ill-managed stable, and es- 

 pecially early in the morning, he is annoyed not only by 

 the heat of the confined air, but by a pungent smell, re- 



