PAVEMENT OF STABLES. 81 



horse's stable I prefer straw that has never been 

 trussed. 



Having made our inspection of the lofts, we 

 will now return to terra firmcu 



The area of the stable of course depends on the 

 number of horses it is destined to contain ; but its 

 width should be the same whether it comprises 

 three stalls or ten. Seventeen feet is just the 

 width I would wish a stable to be from wall to 

 wall ; that is, where the racks are in the corner 

 of the stall : if they are the old-fashioned ones 

 that run across the whole front, the stable from 

 wall to wall should be just so much more in pro- 

 portion to the depth of the rack, so as still to 

 have the seventeen feet from the back of the 

 manger to the wall behind the horses. This is 

 wide enough to keep passers-by from any danger, 

 and not enough to make the stable barn-like 

 and cold. 



Of pavement for the stalls there are various 

 sorts, most of them having their advantages and 

 disadvantages; but, at all events, the ordinary 

 flint stones as pavement are decidedly the very 

 worst ever proposed to pave a stall with. They 

 cut the litter to pieces : the horse cannot stand on 

 them with his feet bearing level, nor can he lie on 

 them in comfort, unless he has a waggon-load of 

 litter under him, which in summer is heating and 

 unpleasant: and, above all, no man can keep such 

 G 



