LNjy GROOM A HORSE, 141 



BO often ailing, and do him twice as mucli good work while 

 the J do last, — as it is undoubtedly the case that they will 

 do, in wholesome and well-constructed stables. -he will easily 

 find, at the end of fifteen or twenty years, that by the first 

 outlay of a couple of hundred dollars at the outside, in 

 making his stable dry, airy, warm and light, he will have 

 economized many hundreds, if not many thousands. And 

 this will easily appear from a very slight calculation of 

 the losses which will arise from the deterioration of his 

 farm stock, their falling lame, requiring farrier's advice, 

 doing but half work half the time, and finally having to 

 be rejected as useless, sold at half price and replaced at 

 full price, after three or four years, by others which will 

 unavoidably follow the same course ; whereas if properly 

 lodged and cared for, the first animals, being sound and 

 hearty at the commencement, might have done good slow 

 farm-work for ten, twelve, or even fifteen years, as well as 

 not ; and if mares, might have brought him half-a-dozen 

 good serviceable colts, or fillies, which would owe much 

 of their value to the state of their dam's health, arising 

 from her food and stabling, without materially detracting 

 from her service on the farm. The material of the stable 

 floor should not be the natural soil, for that speedily be- 

 comes saturated with moisture, and degenerates iLto a 

 slough. It should not, we think, be of wood, for wood 

 absorbs the urine, becomes impregnated with ammonia, 

 and is heating to the feet. Yery hard beaten clay may an- 

 Bwer, but a pavement of small cobble-stones, neatly laid, 

 with such a fall as is mentioned, in clay and sand, or, what 

 b better, of hard bricks laid in cement, and set edgewise, 

 b the best stable floor with which we are acquainted. 



The stable should never be less than eight or nine, but 

 had better be ten or twelve feet high from the floor to the 

 rafters. The door should be so placed that when open, 



