112 THE HORSE AND HIS EIDER. 



the hay in the loft above him from being impaired by 

 foul air.* 



By a simple shaft or chimney, and by other well- 

 known modes of ventilation, both these advantages can be 

 obtained; and yet they are, comparatively speaking, of 

 no avail, if beneath the straw bed on which the horse 

 lies there exists a substratum generating and emitting 

 gases of a highly deleterious composition. 



A stable may be well ventilated and well drained, 

 the forage may be of the best description, and yet all 

 may be impaired by an atmosphere unlit for respiration; 

 for if foul litter beneath be only covered, as is often, and 

 in many stables is usually the case, by a layer of white 

 straw, (like a dirty shirt under a suit of fine new cloth- 

 ing), distemper and disease must be the result. 



Although therefore it should be the secondary duty 

 of a good groom to clean his liorse, his primary duty is 

 to clean his stable ; for as, in a fast and long run across a 

 deep country, it is undeniable that the healthiest lungs 

 must triumph, it follows that a clean horse out of a dirty 

 stable cannot live with a dirty one of exactly the same 

 character and cast out of a clean stable. 



But as it is always easier to preach wisdom than to 

 practise it, so is it infinitely easier to prescribe clean 



* Youatt, in his valuable work entitled " The Horse," truly says that 

 changes from cold to heated foul air are as dangerous to the animal as from 

 heat to cold. 



