8 THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF THE HORSE. 



leak. The coat, however, needs not to be so long as to be unsightly ; and wann 

 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 overheated air of 

 a close stable saves much of this grooming, and therefore the idle attendant unscru- 

 pulously 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 diflTerent 

 Doint of view. 



If the stable is close, the air will not only be hot, but foul. The breathing of every 

 animal contaminates it ; 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; digestion will not be so perfectly performed, and all the 

 functions of life are injured. Let the owner of a valuable horse think of his passing 

 twenty or twenty-two out of the twenty-four hours in this debilitating- atmosphere ! 

 Nature does wonders in enabling every animal to accommodate itself to the situation 

 in which it is placed, and the horse that lives in the stable-oven suffers less from it 

 than would scarcely be conceived possible; but he does not, and cannot, possess 

 the power and the hardihood which he would acquire under other circumstances. 



The air of the improperly close and heated stable is still farther contaminated by 

 the urine and dung, which rapidly ferment there, and give out stimulating and un- 

 wholesome vapours. When a person first enters an ill-nianagcd stable, and especially 

 early in the morning, he is annoyed, not only by the heat of the confined air, but by 

 a pungent smell, resembling hartshorn; and can he be surprised at the inflammation 

 of the eyes, and the chronic cough, and the disease of the lungs, by which the animal, 

 who has been all night shut up in this vitiated atmosphere, is often attacked ; or if 

 glanders and farcy should occasionally break out in such stables ] It has been ascer- 

 tained by chemical experiment that the urine of the horse contains in it an exceedingly 

 large quantity of hartshorn ; and not only so, but that, influenced by the heat of a 

 crowded stable, and possibly by other decompositions that are going forward at the 

 same time, this ammoniacal vapour begins to be rapidly given out almost immediately 

 after the urine is voided. 



When disease begins to appear among the inhabitants of these ill-ventilated places, 

 is it wonderful that it should rapidly spread among them, and that the plague-spot 

 should be, as it were, placed on the door of such a stable 1 When distemper appears 

 in spring or in autumn, it is in very many cases to be traced to such a pest-house. It 

 is peculiarly fatal there. The horses belonging to a small establishment, and ration- 

 ally treated, have it comparatively seldom, or have it lightly ; but among the inmates 

 of a crowded stable it is sure to display itself, and there it is most fatal. The experi- 

 ence of every veterinary surgeon, and of every large proprietor of horses, will corro- 

 borate this statement. Agriculturists should bring to their stables the common sense 

 which directs them in the usual concerns of life, and should begin, wlien their plea- 

 sures and their property are so much at stake, to assume that authority and to enforce 

 that obedience, to the lack of which is to be attributed the greater part of bad stable- 

 management and horse-disease. Of nothing are v/e more certain than that the majority 

 of the maladies of the horse, and those of the worst and most fatal character, are 

 directly or indirectly to be attributed to a deficient supply of air, crue) exaction of 

 ■work, and insufficient or bad fare. Each of these evils is to be dreaded — each is, in 

 a manner, watching for its prey; and when they are combined, more than half of the 

 inmates of the stable are often swept away. 



Every stable should possess within itself a certain degree of ventilation. The cost 

 of this wouhl be trifling, and its saving in the preservation of valuable animals may 

 be immense. Tlie apertures need not be large, and the whole may be so contrived 

 that no direct current of air shall fall on the horse. 



A jrentleman's stable should never be without a thermometer. The temperature 

 should seldom exceed 70° h\ the summer, or sink below 40° or 50° in the winter. 



LITTER. 



Having spoken of the vapour of hartshorn, which is so rapidly and so plentifully 

 given out from the urine of a horse in a lieatod stable, avc next take into consideration 

 the subject of litter. The first caution is frequently to remove it. The early 

 extrication of gas shows the rapid putrefaction of the urine;; and tlie consequence of 

 which will be tlic rapid putrefaction of t!ie litter that has been moistened by it. 



