The Stable. ' 5 



eyes and look about with a startled expression, 

 being unable to distinguish the surrounding ob- 

 jects. Dealers knowing this will keep horses dark 

 to make them look spirited when brought out for 

 sale, often sowing the germs of disease, which 

 end either in partial or total blindness. 



YENTILATION. 



Upon this subject reason and common sense 

 teach us that without fresh air nothing in animal 

 or vegetable life can be healthy. Place a plant in 

 a hot room without plenty of fresh air, and see 

 how soon the most robust becomes sickly and 

 pale. Then what can we think of those who keep 

 a valuable animal like the horse in a stable where 

 the air is so bad that it would kill the vilest weed 

 that grows upon mother earth ? Yet such is the 

 ignorance displayed by the builder, that little or 

 no ventilation is found in nearly all stables, and 

 where there is any ventilation the prejudice of 

 the groom often neutralises their best intentions. 

 'No horse should have less than 10,000 cubic feet 

 of air to consume every hour of his life ; then 

 how is it possible for them to keep healthy if they 

 do not get 1000 feet of air, let alone 10,000 feet 

 per hour ? It is a well-known fact that after air 

 has passed through the lungs of man or beast, 

 it is of no use to support life until it is again 

 charged with oxygen from the surrounding atmo- 

 sphere ; yet some grooms are so short-sighted that 

 they will even stop the keyhole to exclude the air. 

 I have seen stables in Leicestershire, and also in 



