158 STABLE ECONOMY. 



producing any evil. The only mode of learning the effects 

 of a hot atmosphere, would be to place a number of horses in 

 an apartment heated by fire or steam, and so well ventilated 

 that emanations from the lungs, the skin, and the evacuations, 

 would escape before they had time to operate in combination 

 with the heat. The keen advocates for hot stables might try the 

 experiment for a few weeks or months, and such an experiment 

 would tell us at once what heat will, and what it will not do. 

 So far as I have been able to observe, by close attention to a 

 great number of horses confined in all kind of stables, it would 

 appear that 



The Effects of Hot Stabling are only three in number. The 

 first is a fine, short, glossy coat ; the second, a strong disposi- 

 tion to accumulate flesh ; and the third is an extreme suscep- 

 tibility to the influence of cold. These are the permanent 

 effects. Those produced by sudden removal from a cold to 

 a warm stable are somewhat different. For the first week 

 the horse looks as if he were a little fevered. He does not 

 feed well, but drinks much. Sometimes he is dull, and some- 

 times restless, fidgety. If somewhat lusty, or if he eat and 

 drink tolerably well, he often sweats in the stable, particular- 

 ly about the flanks, the groin and quarters. In a few days he 

 seems to become accustomed to the high temperature. His 

 coat lies smoothly ; it glitters as if it were anointed ; the horse 

 recovers his appetite, and rapidly takes on flesh. 



The short glossy coat, is not in this country any evil. The 

 accumulation of flesh is not always desirable, but the stables 

 are never cooled for the purpose of preventing it. The third 

 effect, that is, the intolerance of exposure to cold, produced by 

 hot stabling, is a serious evil. If all the diseases, mostly of 

 a dangerous character, which are ascribed to sudden exposure 

 in a cold atmosphere, really have such an origin, a hot stable 

 can hardly be more destructive than a foul one. It is univer- 

 sally acknowledged, that sudden exposure to cold; that is, 

 rapid abstraction of heat, is dangerous, but whether it have all 

 the power which some attribute to it may be doubted. That 

 cold often does mischief can not be denied, and that the hot 

 stabled horse is in greatest danger is, I think, as unquestion- 

 able. The least exposure makes him shiver, and everybody 

 knows that this shivering is very often followed by a deadly 

 inflammation. 



I do not say that hot stables will produce no other effect. 

 ~ speak only from my own observation, and of a stable without 

 apparent impurity. V^hen the air is tolerably pure, the heat 



