1-24 VEXTILATIOX. 



stable ? When influenza appears in spi'ing or in autumn, it is, in vei-y 

 many cases, to be traced to such a pest-house. It is pecuKarly fatal there. 

 The hoi-ses belonging to a small establishment, and rationally 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 

 experience of every veterinary surgeon, and of every large proprietor of 

 horses, Avill corroborate this statement. Agriculturists should bring to 

 their stables the common sense which directs them in the usual concei-ns 

 of life, and should begin, when their pleasures and their property are so 

 nmch 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-manage- 

 ment and horse-disease. Of nothing are we 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, cruel exaction of work, and insnlficient 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 ai'e 

 often swept away. 



The temperature of the stable is also another important consideration. 

 This should seldom exceed 70° in the summer, or fall below 40° or 50° in 

 the winter. It may be readily ascertained by a thermometer, which no 

 establishment where large numbers of horses are kept should be without. 

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

 glossy coat. The latter, it is thought, cannot be obtained without the 

 former. 



To this we should reply that, in Avinter, a thin, glossy coat is not desir- 

 able. Nature gives to every animal a warmer clothing when the cold 

 weather approaches. The horse — the agricultural horse especially — 

 acquires a thicker and a lengthened coat, in order to defend him from the 

 surrounding cold. Man puts on an additional and a warmer covering, 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 bleak. The coat, however, needs not to be so long as to be 

 iinsightly ; 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 unscrupulously sacrifices the 

 health and safety of the horse. 



Let this be considered in another point of view. The horse stands 

 twtnity 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 annual, thus unnaturally and absurdly 

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



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 o 

 cold and biting air. Many ahorse that lias travelled without harm over a 

 bleak country, has been suddenly seized with inflammation and fever whei' 

 he has, immediately at the end of his journey, been sui'rounded vnth heated 

 and foul air. It is the sudden change of temperature, whether from heat 

 to cold, 01' from cold to heat, that does the mischief, and yearly destroys 

 thousands of horses. 



The stable should be large in proportion to the number of horses which 

 it is destined to contain. It usually consists of loose boxes, each to hold 



