302 KENNELS AND KENNEL MANAGEMENT. 



trees near it. To hunt three or four days a week, you will require 

 about forty couples of hounds according to the country. The 

 lodging-rooms should be four in number, by which you will have 

 a dry floor for the hounds to go on to every morning (the pack 

 in the hunting season being in two divisions), instead of its 

 being washed down whilst the hounds are left shivering in the 

 cold on a bleak winter's day, which I have seen done when the 

 huntsman has been too busy to walk them out during this 

 process. 



Nothing is more prejudicial to hounds than damp lodging- 

 rooms, a sure cause of rheumatism and mange, to which dogs are 

 peculiarly liable. I have seen them affected by rheumatism 

 in various ways, and totally incapacitated from working; some- 

 times they are attacked in the loins, but more often in the 

 shoulders, both proceeding either from a damp situation, damp 

 lodging-room, or damp straw, often combined with the abuse 

 of mercury in the shape of physic. In building kennels, there- 

 fore, the earth should be removed from the lodging-room floor 

 to the depth of a foot at least, and in its place broken stones, 

 sifted gravel, or cinders, should be substituted, with a layer of 

 fine coal-ashes, upon which the brick floor is to be laid, in 

 cement or hot coal-ash mortar, taking care to use bricks which 

 are not porous, or to cover them with a layer of cement, which 

 last is an admirable plan. Outside the waljls and close to them, 

 an air-drain about three feet deep should be constructed with 

 a draining pipe of two inches bore at the bottom, and .filled 

 up with broken stones to within six inches of the surface. 

 This drain is to be carried quite round the building, and should 

 fall into the main sewer. For a roof to the building I prefer 

 thatch to tiles as affording more warmth in winter and coolness 

 in summer ; but as slate or tiles are more agreeable to the eye, 



