2 The Practical Stud Groom. 



making of an " ideal " stud. The difficulty is to get them 

 all in conjunction. For this reason it is to be feared that 

 the absolutely ideal stud is fated to remain a laudable ambi- 

 tion, extremely difficult of attainment. 



It would be a very simple matter to take a clean sheet 

 of notepaper, and sketch thereon the plan of an ideal stud 

 farm ideal in its details of stabling and paddocks and 

 their perfect correlation to each other ; but one might travel 

 many miles, and spend many days in one's search for a 

 stretch of land on which the already existing buildings and 

 hedges lent themselves to the stud architect's plans, to say 

 nothing of such vital questions as soil, drainage, and water 

 supply. Even if an ideal block of land, innocent of both 

 buildings and hedges, were discovered, the question of 

 shelter would have to be met, because a wind-proof hedge- 

 row is the growth of years. The laying out of a stud farm 

 is usually a case of " cutting one's suit according to one's 

 cloth," that is to say, adapting already existing materials 

 to the desired end. 



It is a very curious fact, that the stud groom's advice is 

 very rarely sought in stud-farm planning. Yet were he a 

 trained draughtsman, he would, from his knowledge of 

 every little detail in stud management, be an ideal stud- 

 farm architect so far as stabling and the arrangement of 

 paddocks are concerned, while even his ideas on questions of 

 soil and herbage might be worth consideration. Many an 

 accomplished architect has planned houses that he con- 

 sidered the last word in convenience and comfort, but in 

 which the subsequent residents have immediately discovered 

 serious discomforts and inconveniences at once obvious to 



