412 AGRICULTURE AND THE HORSE. 



ventilated stables, — stables well lighted, with stalls 

 of ample dimensions, with escape-pipes for the ammo- 

 niacal effluvia which arise from so many animals and 

 their excretions, with more room for evaporation, and 

 then the chances would no longer be against every 

 horse who passes through those doors, as they were 

 against those ghostly ones who passed through Dante's 

 gate, and, as they went in, read above their heads, — 



"Per me si va in eterno dolore." 

 "Who passes here goes into everlasting hell." 



Improve the stables, then, and prevent disease. Give 

 the young horses more and better food, — more sweet 

 hay, and less sour grain. In all the stables, public and 

 IDrivate, give them better air, broader stalls, cleaner 

 feed-boxes, better floors, and fewer stenches. Do not 

 insult a respectable animal who has come down from 

 the country to do his share of the work of the world, 

 and has brought with him the memory of the sweet 

 hills and skies at least, by immuring him in one of those 

 cramped, rickety, rotten, stinking, slovenly, damp dun- 

 geons, where a dumb beast would lose his breath, and 

 his self-respect, and his courage, beneath an oppressive 

 weight of miasmas, and hideous, gloomy, nasty confu- 

 sion. Stop this, or pray that horses may die ere the 

 evil days come. 



But, sir, I shall be reminded, I am sure, of that unfor- 

 tunate and trying tendency of almost every horse, how- 

 ever well he may be cared for, to become more or less 



