Imfekvious Floors — Wooden Posts. 499 



his stud by a sort of sewer or typhoid fever ; while stables in the neighbourhood without any 

 surface-drains, but carefully cleaned out, were perfectly healthy. 



On the other hand, when the Earl of Stamford sold his numerous stud by auction on resigning 

 the Mastership of the Ouorn Hounds, it was generally admitted that never had so many horses 

 been brought to the hammer in such fine condition ; }'et they were lodged in stables not better 

 than those of cart-horses on a large farm of the old style, before model farms were invented. 



After the foundation, the floor is a matter of prime importance; it should be durable, quite 

 impervious to wet, and not slippery. 



If it is provided with surface-drains for carrying off the urine and washing of the horses, they 

 should be constructed in such a manner that they can be cleaned out from day to day. Gratings 

 and traps, however ingeniously devised, seldom prevent the drains being choked ; and cast-iron 

 traps, even if not lifted by the grooms, are pretty sure to be broken. 



But if the horses are bountifully supplied with bedding of straw or sawdust, the damp portions 

 of which are regularly removed every morning and evening, it is b)- no means essential that there 

 should be surface-drains at all. A mere open channel leading to the outside of the stable is the 

 best arrangement. 



They are not used, according to Colonel Fitzwygram, in cavalry barracks. There were none 

 in the Pytchley stables when Mr. Anstruther Thompson was Master, and there are thousands of 

 hard-working horses standing on sawdust in London, without a drain. 



An impervious floor is a great advantage : it can be washed and dried easily. Asphalte made 

 rough is the best, but it is costly. A concrete foundation made up with gas-tar, four inches 

 thick, on which stable clinkers are set and bedded, and grouted in with Portland cement, makes 

 a very perfect floor. 



The materials of the walls may be wood, stone, or brick. The bricks glazed on the inside are 

 the best, as they hold no dirt. If stone, wood, or soft bricks be used, the walls facing the horses' 

 heads should be lined with slate or tiles. For the convenience of manufacture the posts and ramps 

 of the most expensive stables are usually made of iron. Oak posts answer quite as well, are 

 warmer, and not so liable to cause capped hocks as iron. The divisions of stalls and boxes, if 

 not of brick, should be of elm, beech, or oak, not less than two inches thick, but dents when a 

 hoof shod with iron rattles against it. At Rugby, the stables of a dealer — " The Man of the 

 Age," they call him — erected regardless of expense, are built entirely of brick — even the mangers 

 are of brick, and each horse has a one-roomed cottage entirely to himself. 



When the owner is only a tenant, it may answer to erect stables of wood, fixed on a properly 

 prepared foundation, and constructed in such a manner that they can be taken to pieces and 

 removed without much expense to another place. Such buildings may be procured from Sweden 

 at a comparatively cheap rate, constructed from the owner's own plan, and fitted together like a 

 toy-house. 



Mangers may be of iron, slate, or hard wood, the edges lined with iron, or some impervious 

 material that can be kept clean. A moderately long manger is to be preferred, because horses 

 generally begin by spreading their corn about, and if the manger is too small, they waste a good 

 deal by driving it over the edges. A circle of wood or metal, into which a full-sized galvanised 

 iron bucket, with lips on each side, and without a handle, can be dropped, answers every 

 purpose as well as the most costly contrivances. It has this great advantage over a permanent 

 water-hole : that the bucket can be emptied every time before the horse is re-watered. There 

 are very strong objections to a water-trough which cannot be emptied without giving the groom 

 trouble. 



