STABLE ECONOMY. 



FIRST CHAPTER. 

 STABLING. 



I. CONSTRUCTION OF STABLES. II. VENTILATION OF 



STABLES. III. APPENDAGES OF STABLES. 



CONSTRUCTION OF STABLES. 



Stables have been in use for several hundred years. It 

 might be expected that the experience of so many genera- 

 tions would have rendered them perfect. They are better 

 than they were some years ago. Many of modern erection 

 have few faults. They are spacious, light, well-aired, dry, 

 and comfortable. This, however, is not the character of 

 stables in general. The majority have been built with little 

 regard to the comfort and health of the horse. Most of them 

 are too small, too dark, and too close, or too open. Some 

 are mere dungeons, so destitute of every convenience that no 

 man of respectability [or ordinary humanity] would willingly 

 make them the abode of his horses. 



Stable architects have not much to boast of. When left 

 to themselves they seem to think of little beyond shelter and 

 confinement. If the weather be kept out, and the horse kept 

 in, the stable is sufficient. If light and air be demanded, the 

 doorway will admit them, and other apertures are superfluous ; 

 if the horse have room to stand, it matters little though he have 

 none to lie ; and if he get into the stable, it is of no conse- 

 quence though his loins be sprained, or his haunches broken, 

 in going out of it. 



Bad stables, it is true, are not equally pernicious to all 

 kinds of horses. Those that have little work suffer much 



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