22 STABLE ECONOMY. 



a large one ; and I believe it is more expensive to light a 

 double-headed stable properly from the sides than from the 

 roof. When the stalls are all on one side the case is dif- 

 ferent, especially if the back wall be unconnected with any 

 other building. Windows above the horses' head generally 

 light the wrong side of the stable, and those at the ends can 

 hardly be made to light more than one or two stalls. 



Windows may or may not be made to open. Some of them 

 should open, in order that the stable may, upon certain occa- 

 sions, receive an extraordinary airing. But for constant and 

 necessary ventilation there must be apertures which can never 

 be wholly closed. 



Window-shutters, in some situations, are useful for tnree 

 purposes. By darkening the stable they encourage a fatigued 

 horse to rest through the day ; they keep out the flies in the 

 hot days of summer ; and in winter they help to keep the 

 stable warm. They may be made of wood, of basket-work, 

 or of matting, according to the purpose for which they are 

 wanted. In some stables the windows are removable, so that 

 in summer they can be taken out and their place filled by a 

 piece of basket-work or framed canvass, which may be wet 

 in hot weather. The stables are thus kept cool ; the flies 

 and the heat of the sun are excluded. Some horses are sadly 

 annoyed by flies. They do not enter a dark stable. 



The Roof of the stable usually forms the floor of the hay- 

 loft. In some of the farm stables there is no hay-loft. The 

 outer roof is the roof of the stable, and is of thatch or tile, 

 plastered or unplastered. " The most wholesome stables," 

 says a popular, though a very superficial author, " are those 

 where nothing intervenes between the roof of the building and 

 the floor, and I have had occasion to observe that roofs made 

 of unplastered tile, form the best mode of ventilation."* In 

 the country, where it is impossible to have the litter removed 

 as it is soiled, and where the horses are not the worse of 

 having a long coat, a roof of tile, plastered or unplastered, 

 may afford all the shelter they require, while it favors the 

 escape of effluvia from the rotting litter, upon which the horses 

 of a slovenly farmer are compelled to seek repose. But stables 

 of this kind are not for horses of fast and laborious work. 

 They are too cold. 



If the loft be above the stable, the ceiling must be nine 

 feet from the ground, and if the stable contains more than 

 four horses the ceiling must be higher. A height of from 



* White. 



