MANGERS AND RACKS. 27 



pulling it down and tramping it among his feet, but it 

 remains in the rack before him. Stonehenge tells us, that 

 the low rack saves the waste of 10 pounds of hay per horse 

 in one week. Where the troughs or mangers are made of 

 wood, to prevent the feet of the horse from breaking 

 through the bottom of them, let a post of thick strong wood 

 be the resting-place for the bottom boards, and have them 

 firmly and solidly fixed upon this ; for if this precaution be 

 overlooked, a bottomless manger and an injured horse will 

 occasionally be the result. The top rail or cap of the man- 

 ger and rack should be either of iron, or hard wood covered 

 with sheet-iron, tin, or zinc, so as to prevent the horse 

 from gnawing it with his teeth when he is idle or restless. 

 This cap rail, to which the halter-ring is to be fastened, is 

 firmly fixed at each end into the travis or wall, thus pre- 

 venting the possibility of the horse in his endeavors to get 

 loose from pulHng the ring and rail with him, thereby 

 injuring the stable as well as teaching him a bad lesson, 

 especially if he be a young horse. 



The stall-posts or bale-posts, as they were formerly 

 called, now rarely reach from the ground to the ceiling, 

 but are from five to seven feet high, and are made of wood 

 (usually cedar) or of cast-iron, round in front, with a 

 groove in the back of them, so as to admit the ends of the 

 boards forming the stall divisions. These posts, whether 

 of iron or wood, are sometimes very attractive in their 

 appearance, from the ingenuity displayed on them by the 

 iron moulder or wood turner. 

 3* 



