STABLIN'G 



AND STABLE ARCHITECTURE. 



There is probably no one thing, which, has so great an influ- 

 ence on the well-being of horses, or the reverse, as the construc- 

 tion and arrangement of the stables; and in none has there 

 been, for the most part, until a recent period, so mucli miscon- 

 ception as to what is requisite, and so much ignorance displayed 

 both by architects and horse owners, as in this particular. 



It being well known and admitted that a horse cannot be in 

 the highest condition, and capable of doing his best, without 

 having a short, fine, silky and blooming coat, and that, if he be 

 put to such work as makes him sweat profusely, when his hair 

 is coarse, long and shaggy, he incurs great risk of taking serious 

 cold, beside the consideration that such a coat vastly increases 

 the labor of the stablemen ; it has of course always been an 

 object with horse proprietors, to produce and promote, by all 

 means in their power, this condition of the skin. 



Now to this end, heat, to a certain degree, is indispensable ; 

 but both the degree and the proper means of producing this 

 heat have been dangerously miscalculated, and exaggerated. 



The entire exclusion of the outer atmospheric air has had 

 the most baleful results, producing, of necessity, a coiTuj)t and 

 fetid state of that most vital element which the animals are 

 compelled to breathe, mixed with the powerful effluvia from 

 the pores of their own bodies, and the vapors arising from 



