THE liunsE. 35 



water. When he is a little cooled, two or three quarts may be 

 given to -him, and after that his feed. Before he has finished 

 his corn, two or three quarts more may be offered. He will 

 take no harm if this is repeated three or four times during a long 

 and hot day.* 



VII.-GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 



1. Air. We have spoken of the necessity of ventilation. 

 Hear what that great authority, Youatt, says : 



"If the stable is close, the air will not only be hot but foul. 

 The breathing of every animal contaminates it ; and when in 

 the course of the night, with every aperture stopped, it passes 

 again and again through the lungs, the blood can not undergo 

 its proper and healthy change ; digestion will not be so per- 

 fectly performed, and all the functions of life are injured. Let 

 the owner of a valuable horse think of his passing twenty or 

 twenty-two out of the twenty-four hours in this debilitating 

 atmosphere ! Nature does wonders in enabling every animal 

 to accommodate itself to the situation in which it is placed, 

 and the horse that lives in the stable-oven suffers less from it 

 than would scarcely be conceived possible : but he does not, 

 and can not, possess the power and the hardihood which he 

 would acquire under other circumstances. 



" The air of the improperly close and heated stable is still 

 further contaminated by the urine and dung, which rapidly 

 ferment there, and give out stimulating and unwholesome 

 vapors. When a person first enters an ill-managed stable, and 

 especially early in the morning, he is annoyed not only by the 

 heat of the confined air, but by a pungent smell, resembling 

 hartshorn; and can he be surprised at the inflammation of the 

 eyes, and the chronic cough, and the disease of the lungs, by 

 which the animal, who has been all night shut up in this vitia- 

 ted atmosphere, is often attacked; or if glanders and farcy 

 should occasionally break out in such stables ? It has been 

 ascertained by chemical experiment that the urine of the horse 



* Yoyatt. 



