358 [Assembly 



decomposition in place, the same as the fatty matters produced I 

 heat. Thus the mere vegetative life of the auimal is building up 

 the system from the plants it feeds upon, while the powers of lo- 

 comotion and superior animal life require that decomposition 

 should take place to give force for motion, and heat to sustain i 

 animal temperature. The digestion of food in the stomach, as 

 well as its passage through the intestines, also eliminates heat. 

 Heat, then, is necessary to animal life If animals lose heat by i 

 exposure to currents of air, to the constant evaporation of mois- j 

 ture from rains and snows deposited upon their bodies, and, as I 

 have just shown that this heat is derived originally from food | 

 consumed, it follows, that in order to render the animal healthy, ; 

 to secure larger returns in the form of milk or increase of flesh, [ 

 it becomes necessary io provide conditions which, while it main- 

 tains these essential requirements of animal existence, shall bt 

 done at the least expenditure of food. This can only be accom- I 

 plished by providing what the best farmers, both in England and ' 

 America have discovered to be the most profitable, viz., warm, I 

 well ventilated stables. j 



Mr. Solon Robinson —Many of the horses in this city are kept 

 in dark cellars, and constantly breed disease by want of light and 



air, and the ammonia arising from the floor. It is a common j 



practice of livery stables to put horses kept by the month in a \ 



cellar, where each horse has not a breathing hole twelve inches j 



square, and scarcely a ray of light, and no exercise except walk- j 



ing a few feet to water. In the stables of some laborers who i 



keep but a single horse it is still worse, for at night they are shut | 



up in their cubby holes or cellars, almost air light, and the stables ; 



are kept more unclean than the public stables Horses are often i 



stabled upon floors one above another. It is difficult to say which i 

 tier is worst off", since the gas from the cellar rises to those above. 



On the corner of Grand and Mercer streets, a large cluirch has i 



been turned into a horse stable. I don't know how much pure ' 

 and undefiled religion dwelt there when it was used for a place 

 of worship ; I do know that those who stable horses in unvenii- 

 lated stables, like the basement of that church have no mercy. 



<' A merciful man is merciful to his beast." ! 



