4 THE TRAINING STABLFS. 
demand our first attention, for unless they are properly built, 
and their internal arrangements perfect, their inmates will 
fall into a state of chronic disease, rather than enjoy robust 
health, and will be more in need of the veterinary surgeon 
than the trainer. 
The stables I intend describing (which though not a model 
of perfection, have probably fewer faults than most others) 
are those I built here some twenty-eight years ago. They 
have met the approbation of competent judges, and in a 
sanitary point of view have stood the test of time. 
They are built of brick and faced flint in the proportion of 
two of the former to four of the latter without the least 
attempt at ornamentation, square shaped with lofts above; 
the roof being composed of tile, which is better than slate, 
being cooler in summer and warmer in winter—both desirable 
objects of attainment. The nineteen boxes and thirty-one 
stalls are intermixed for the more equal diffusion of heat ; for 
a uniform temperature throughout is very desirable. Each 
set of four stalls is divided from the others by sliding par- 
titions of deal, fastened with iron latches. The boxes are 
opened and shut by a screen running on rollers at the top. 
This plan is safer than to have the rollers at the bottom, 
for in the latter case, horses may, by kicking or other violence, 
force the partitions open and get together. With the rollers 
at the top, this is simply impossible, unless something should 
break, a thing I never knew to occur. 
In size the boxes are eleven-and-a-half feet by twelve, which 
leaves a clear space of six feet behind the horses, giving 
suffic:ent room to pass from stable to stable, and to keep the 
animals from the draught of the windows and air-holes; for 
without this safeguard a sudden fall in the temperature during 
the night may be the cause of colds, if of nothing worse, 
