292 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
The bedding, acting as an absorbent, should always 
be the main reliance for drainage. 
The necessity of sunlight in a stable is now so well 
understood that it need not be dwelt upon. The 
horse, having a peculiarly fine organization, is espe- 
cially sensitive to the presence or absence of sunshine. 
A good Vet will never perform an operation on a 
cloudy day if it be possible to postpone it; and where 
distemper, or any other disease, runs through a stable, 
it will, I believe, invariably be found that the lightest 
cases and quickest recoveries occur in the stalls that 
receive the most sunshine, although none of them 
may be actually dark. So also it is now commonly 
understood that stables should be cool, —a truth 
which English horsemen have been very slow to learn. 
Even “Nimrod,” an advanced writer with new and 
sensible theories about hunters, thought that horses 
could hardly be kept in the pink of condition if the 
temperature of their quarters fell much below seven- 
ty-five degrees! To their hot, ill ventilated stables 
many English writers ascribe the former excessive 
prevalence of roaring, now fast decreasing in Eng- 
land, and in this country almost unknown. 
A temperature of fifty-five degrees is not far from 
the right one in winter, and any degree of cold above 
freezing will be borne by horses with perfect comfort, 
provided they are well blanketed. The real enemy of 
the horse is not cold, but dampness; and against that. 
he is to be defended at all points. If a horse begins 
to cough, let him be put in the sunniest, driest part 
of the stable, and he will recover the sooner, even 
though his new situation be much cooler than the old 
one. Dogs in damp kennels always have rheumatism, 
