HORSES AND STABLES 261 



in the hunting season, and when sixteen years old, and 

 sti'l as sound as a foal, he reached the end of an 

 honourable career in the hunting field. 



A master of hounds with a stud of about twenty 

 hunters tried all sorts of experiments in the matter of 

 stabling. He built stone boxes, stalls, wooden boxes, 

 and brick boxes, and after considerable experience he 

 came to the conclusion that his horses thrived best in 

 the wooden boxes. These were about fifteen feet by 

 twelve, some eighteen feet in height, had flat, cemented 

 floors and a tiled roof, with enough ventilation holes 

 placed low down and rather high up to allow of the 

 fresh air coming in and the stale air going out at the 

 top. Either in a stable or a box the floor should be 

 nearly level, for if it slopes considerably downwards to 

 allow of drainage, the horse has constantly to stand on 

 an uneven surface, and this should be avoided at all 

 costs. A fall of not more than four inches will allow 

 the water to run off when the box is washed out, and will 

 not hurt the horse. But, as every one who has experi- 

 ence with horses will gradually find out, much depends 

 on the constitution of each particular horse. One horse 

 will thrive in a tumbledown hovel, so low that he can 

 hardly stretch his head to its full height, while another 

 must have light and air, and be well looked after and 

 attended to. 



We are not going to write a treatise on stables, and 

 shall only repeat that light and air must be considered 

 essentials, and that a hot stable is apt to make hunters 

 delicate. We can think of a hunting stable which at 

 one time contained some eighteen or twenty hunters 

 all through the season. The stud groom was a 

 coddler in every sense of the word, and the upshot 

 was as soon as the hunting season was fairly under 



