Stabling Arrangements 337 



accommodations, and the writer may perhaps be ex- 

 cused for describing briefly the arrangements he has 

 used many times, always with utmost satisfaction 

 and consequent good results ; and although these 

 were country stables, where space was of no special 

 value, the extra room occupied in some ways was 

 economised in others. For floors, of course, in the 

 city one must generally depend upon plank for pref- 

 erence or some of the brick and stone arrangements 

 which are very expensive, damp, slippery, and treach- 

 erous. 



Such a " horse boarding-house" contained no part- 

 titions whatever — everything hung up, hooked to- 

 gether, or rested upon the ground, allowing a free 

 internal space, capable of subdivision in many ways, 

 easy to clean thoroughly, inexpensive tO' construct 

 and to maintain, dry, airy, and, through the sociabil- 

 ity it allowed, most enjoyable to its equine inhab- 

 itants. The floor was always earth (overlaid with 

 an inch or two of sand, if procurable) and under this 

 ten inches of earth was a substratum of coarse gravel 

 or broken stone about six inches deep; below this 



