VENTILATION. 367 



thought is bestowed on the new and dangerous character that the air is assuming, it 

 will be too evident that sore throat, and swelled legs, and bad eyes, and inflamed 

 lungs, and mange, and grease, and glanders, will scarcely ever be long out of that 

 stable. 



Let this be considered in another point of view. The horse stands twenty or two- 

 and-twenty hours in this unnatural vapour bath, and then he is suddenly stripped of 

 all his clothing, he is led into the open air, and there he is kept a couple of hours or 

 more in a temperature fifteen or twenty degrees below that of the stable. Putting the 

 inhumanity of this out of the question, must not the animal thus unnaturally and 

 absurdly treated be subjected to rheumatism, catarrh, and various other complaints'? 

 Does he not often stand, iiour after hour, in the road or the street, while his owner is 

 warming himself within, and this perhaps after every pore has been opened by a 



rushing gallop, and his susceptibility to the painful and the injurious influence of 

 cold has been excited to the utmost] 



It is not so generally known, as it ought to be, that the return to a hot stable is 

 quite as dangerous as the change from a heated atmosphere to a cold and biting air. 

 Many a horse that has travelled without harm over a bleak country, has been suddenly 

 seized with inflammation and fever when he has, immediately at the end of his 

 journey, been surrounded with heated and foul air. It is the sudden change of tem- 

 perature, whether from heat to cold, or from cold to heat, that does the mischief, and 

 yearly destroys thousands of horses. 



Mr. Clarke of Edinburgh was the first who advocated the use of well-ventilated 

 stables. After him Professor Coleman established them in the quarters of the cavalry 

 troops, and there cannot be a doubt that he saved the government many thousand 

 pounds every year. His system of ventilation, however, like many other salutary 

 innovations, was at first strongly resisted. Much evil was predicted ; but after a 

 time, diseases that used to dismount whole troops, almost entirely disappeared from 

 the army. 



The stable should be as large, compared with the number of horses that it is destined 

 to contain, as circumstances will allow. A stable for six horses should not be less 

 than forty feet in length, and thirteen or fourteen feet wide. If there is no loft above, 

 the inside of the roof should always be plastered, in order to prevent direct currents 

 of air and occasional droppings from broken tiles. The heated and foul air should 

 escape, and cool and pure air be admitted, by elevation of the central tiles ; or by large 

 tubes carried through the roof, with caps a little above them, to prevent the beating in 

 of the rain ; or by gratings placed high up in the walls. These latter apertures 

 should be as far above the horses as they can conveniently be placed, by which means 

 all injurious draught will be prevented. 



If there is a loft above the stable, the ceiling should be plastered, in order to prevent 

 the foul air from penetrating to the hay above, and injuring both its taste and its 

 wholesomeness ; and no openings should be allowed above the racks, through which 

 the hay may be thrown into them; for they will permit the foul air to ascend to the 

 provender, and also in the act of filling the rack, and while the horse is eagerly gazinnr 

 upward for his food, a grass seed may fall into the eye, and produce considerable 

 inflammation. At other times, when the careless groom has left open the trap-door, 

 a stream of cold air beats down on the head of the horse. 



The stable with a loft over it should never be less than twelve feet high, and proper 

 ventilation should be secured either by tubes carried through the loft to the roof, or by 

 gratinors close to the ceiling. These gratings or openings should be enlarsjed or con- 

 tracted by means of a covering or shutter, so that during spring, summer, and autumn, 

 the stable may possess nearly the same temperature with the open air, and in winter 

 a temperature of not more than ten degrees above that of the external atmosphere. 



A hot stable has, in the mind of the groom, been long connected with a glossy 

 coat. The latter, it is thougfht, cannot be obtained without the former. 



To this we should reply, that in winter a thin, glossy coat is not desirable. Nature 

 gives to every animal a warmer clothing when the cold weather approaches. The 

 horse — the agricultural horse especially — acquires a thicker and a len^■thened coat, in 

 order to defend him from the surrounding cold. Man puts on an additional and a 

 warmer coveringr, and his comfort is increased and his health preserved by it. He 

 who knows anything of the farmer's horse, or cares about his enjoyment^ will not 

 object to a coat a little longer and a little roughened when the wintry wind blows 



