SECRETARY'S REPORT. 195 



THE STABLE. 



A suitable stable is the first requisite in the care of a horse. 

 It should be capacious, well-ventilated, but warm, well-lighted, 

 and so situated as to be free from dampness. Stables are not 

 unfrequently built over cellars or depressions in the soil, which 

 receive the manure, and are often partially filled with water. 

 The constant evaporation from this pond keeps tlie entire stable 

 damp and chilly, and thus in an excellent condition for causing 

 founder or rheumatism, lung fever, colic, and other diseases in 

 the poor, exhausted creatures, whose uncomfortable nights 

 must be passed there. Warmer, but not more salubrious, are 

 stables over cellars, dark and close, which are fuming with the 

 pungent, noxious gases generated by fermenting dung. Such 

 cellars ought always to be very thoroughly ventilated, not 

 merely by an open door or space on one side, but by a constant 

 and abundant circulation of air. 



The stalls sliould be as wide as circumstances will allow, but 

 never less than five feet, in order that the horse may have room 

 to lie in an easy, unconstrained position, and rise without any 

 danger of bruising the points of his hips. 



Wherever it is feasible, a loose box-stall twelve or fourteen 

 feet square is by far the most comfortable for the horse, and 

 there sliould be at least one in every stable, for use in cases of 

 sickness or accident. The difference between such a resting- 

 place, into which the horse is turned loose, and a narrow stall, 

 where his head is hitched up two feet from the floor, as often 

 happens, is much like that between a berth in the cabin of a 

 steam-boat and a nice, double bed. 



The floor upon which the horse stands should be as near level 

 as possible, and if it must be inclined to carry off the water, it 

 would probably be more agreeable to the horse to have his fore 

 feet tlie lowest, as his back sinews are less tense in this position ; 

 and it is observed that for this reason horses in pasture usually 

 stand with their fore feet in a hole which they have excavated 

 by stamping. 



The English method of having a grate over a closed drain in 

 the centre of the stall is an excellent one. 



Another good plan is to lay a double floor, the under one 

 with an inclination of three inches, and the upper one of jtlanks 

 four inches thick at one end and one inch at the other, placed 



