44 THE PRACTICAL HORSE KEEPER. 



the maintenance of an even temperature, and especially to 

 ensure dryness important considerations where valuable horses 

 are kept the walls should be thick, and lined with plaster or 

 cement ; some stables have the inner bricks of the wall glazed, 

 and either white or of a neutral tint j others are oil-painted, 

 which allows them to be easily washed and kept clean, while 

 others again, less expensively finished, are merely whitewashed. 

 When there is no loft overhead, the stable may be roofed with 

 slates or tiles ; the former have the disadvantage of allowing 

 the stable to be very hot in summer, and to obviate this a layer 

 of felt has been recommended to be laid between the slates and 

 the boards, or even a lining of thatch inside the latter, or a 

 partial ceiling of boards a few inches from the roof. It must 

 be remembered that too warm or too hot stables are unhealthy, 

 and especially for horses exposed to sudden changes and in- 

 clemency of weather, as they feel the effects of external cold in 

 proportion to the warmth of the stable they stand in. It has 

 long been recognised that a cool stable makes a healthy horse, 

 and so long as the temperature does not descend below cool, 

 efforts should be made to keep it comfortable. A high tem- 

 perature in summer and a freezing one in winter, are to be 

 alike avoided. 



DIMENSIONS. 



The dimensions of a stable will, of course, depend upon the 

 number of horses to be kept in it, and the amount of cubic 

 space necessary to ensure health. Nothing in the whole range 

 of horse management, next to a proper allowance of food and 

 water, or even on an equality with it, is so important as a 

 sufficient supply of good air in stables, and this can only be 

 secured by efficient ventilation and a due allowance of cubic 

 space. Without a sufficiency of pure air health cannot be long 

 maintained ; and the number of diseases which are caused by 

 breathing foul air, as well as the predisposition to other most 



