14 STABLE ECONOMY. 



mismanagement before they are injured. But those in con^ 

 stant and laborious employment must have good lodgings. 

 Where the stables are bad, the management is seldom good, 

 and it can not be of the best kind. It is no exaggeration to 

 say, that hundreds of coaching-horses, and others employed 

 at similar work, are destroyed every year by the combined 

 influence of bad stables and bad stable management. Ex- 

 cessive toil and bad food have much to do in the work of de- 

 struction ; but every hostile agent operates with most force 

 where the stables are of the worst kind ; and several causes 

 of disease can operate nowhere else. 



Situation of Stables. — Few have much choice of situa- 

 tion. When any exists, that should be selected which will 

 admit of draining, shelter from the coldest winds, and easy 

 access. The aspect should be southern. Training stables 

 should be near the exercising ground. The surface should 

 be sloping, and the soil dry. Stables built in a hollow, or in 

 a marsh, are always damp. When the foundation is sunk in 

 clay, no draining will keep the walls dry. Some of the means 

 usually employed against dampness in dwelling-houses, might 

 be adopted in the construction of stables. These, as every 

 builder knows, consist in a contrivance for preventing the 

 wall from absorbing the moisture of the soil. In some places 

 a course of whin, or other stone, impenetrable to water, joined 

 by cement, is laid level with the ground ; in other places, a 

 sheet of lead, laid upon a deal board, is employed ; and in 

 the neighborhood of coal-pits, the foundation is sometimes 

 laid in coal-dust, which does not absorb water, and is much 

 less expensive than either lead or stone. It is not right to 

 suppose that precautions of this kind are superfluous. 



A damp Stable produces more evil than a damp house. 

 It is there we expect to find horses with bad eyes, coughs, 

 greasy heels, swelled legs, mange, and a' long, rough, dry, 

 staring coat, which no grooming can cure. The French 

 attribute glanders and farcy to a humid atmosphere ; and in 

 a damp situation we find these diseases most prevalent ; 

 though, in this country, excess of moisture is reckoned as 

 only a subordinate cause. In London, and in other towns, 

 there are several stables under the surface ; they are never 

 dry, and never healthy. The bad condition, and the disease, 

 so common and so constantly among their ill-fated inhabitants, 

 may undoubtedly arise from a combination of causes ; but 

 there is every reason to believe that humidity is not the least 

 potent 



