COOL STABLES RECOMMENDED. 



CHAPTER II. 



VENTILATION AND LIGHT. 



Light and air e.-sentials — Cool stables the best — Stifling condition of certain 

 stables ; its effects and attractiveness to those preferring looks to health — 

 Mr. Burns and Dr. Soutliwood on the value of pure air and principles of 

 ventilation — Another excellent authority and his arguments — Simple experi- 

 ments in proof of my theory^Temptations to an opposite course and 

 direful results — Extra clothing preferred to exclusion of air — Light equally 

 necessary — A worn-ont theory, " the tinsel of glossy coats." 



Light and fi-esh air are essentials to the health of all domestic 

 animals. Nevertheless, in olden times, when knowledge u^as 

 limited, owners of horses used to, and in some instances, even 

 in the present day (be it said to their folly) do, shut up the 

 animals in ill-built stables, low and narrow, in fact, insufficient 

 in every dimension ; air-holes too small, too kw and im- 

 properly placed, with small windows, made as though never 

 meant to be opened. I have seen trainers in their zeal for 

 the welfare of the animal, or his appearance, have the very 

 keyhole stopped with a small wisp of hay or straw, and 

 the outside of the doors barricaded, as if to resist an on- 

 slaught of soine terrible enemy — half embedded in dung 

 suffered to remain till it has become in a high state of fer- 

 mentation, disengaging deleterious gases — for the sole purpose 

 of producing excessive heat, poisoning the circumam.bicnt 

 air that beneficent nature has pro\ided. 



