CONSTRUCTION OF STABLES. 19 



much drier for such an arrangement, and more healthy.] It 

 may be placed either at the middle or at the extremity of the 

 gangway. It is most convenient at one end of the stable, 

 affording a direct and easy passage out and in. The entrance 

 should be eight, or eight and a half feet high, and five wide 

 Accidents often happen from having it too low and too nar- 

 row. Three feet six inches is the usual width of a stable 

 doorway ; a few are four feet wide. There is seldom any- 

 thing to prevent it from being five, and this width is the best. 

 No care is nece* ary in taking the horse through. Passing 

 through a narrow doorway, the careless or drunken driver is 

 almost sure to bruise the horse's haunches. 



The door-sole should be about three inches above the outer 

 surface, bevelled and grooved. The door itself should be in 

 two or three pieces. It is sometimes cut into four ; but one 

 longitudinal section down its middle, and another across one 

 of the halves, are sufficient. One half or three fourths can 

 thus be open or shut according to circumstances. Sometimes 

 the door is divided into two by a transverse section, the lower 

 half of which is usually closed when the groom is performing 

 his stable operations. Whichever way it be divided, it ought 

 to be so hung that it wall be out of the way when open ; it 

 should swing back of its own accord, and remain unheld ; but 

 it may have a spring or a catch for retaining it in place, lest it 

 be caught by some part of the harness vi^hen the horse is going 

 out or in. This often happens, and sometimes gives the horse 

 such a fright or injury, that he learns the dangerous habit of 

 leaping through the doorway. A self-acting spring can be 

 depended on more than a servant. The doors usually open 

 inward. The bolts should be of wood, and the key and the 

 latch sunk flush with the door. The posts should be rounded. 

 In some stables the middle of the door-post is made to re- 

 volve, so that it may turn when struck by the haunches. This 

 is a useless refinement ; it never turns by a blow, though it 

 miffht if the horse were rubbing against it. Wider doorways, 

 against which there can be no objections, render contrivances 

 of this kind unnecessary. If there were any chance of in- 

 jury to a valuable horse, the door-posts might be covered with 

 a pad or cushion composed of hay or straw and gardener's 

 matting. 



Windows are sadly neglected. They are often too few, 

 too small, or ill placed, even in stables of high pretensions. 

 In very many stables, particularly those appropriated to farm- 

 horses, there are no windows, nor any apology for them. 



