NEGLECTED COMFORT, &C., OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 397 
through which the hay may be thrown into the fodder, for they also 
will permit the foul air to ascend to the provender ; and, in the act 
of filling the rack, and while the horse is eagerly gazing upward 
for his food, many a grass-seed has fallen into his eye, and pro- 
duced considerable inflammation ; while, at other times, when the 
careless groom has left open the trap-door, a stream of cold air 
beats down upon the head of the horse. The stable with a loft 
over it should never be less than twelve feet high, and proper ven- 
tilation should be secured either by tubes carried through the loft 
to the roof, or by gratings close to the ceiling. These gratings or 
openings should be enlarged or contracted by means of a covering 
or shutter, so that during spring, summer, and autumn, the stable 
should possess nearly the same temperature with the open air, and 
in winter a temperature not more than ten degrees above that of the 
external atmosphere. A hot stable has, in the mind of the groom, 
been long connected with a glossy coat. The latter, it is thought, 
cannot be attained without the former. To this we should reply, 
that in winter a thin glossy coat is not desirable. Nature gives to 
every animal a warmer clothing when the cold weather approaches. 
The horse acquires a thicker and a lengthened coat, in order to 
defend him from the surrounding cold. Man puts on an additional 
and a warmer covering, and his comfort is increased and his health 
preserved by it. He who knows any thing of the horse, or cares 
any thing for his enjoyment, will not object to a coat a little longer 
and a little roughened when the wintry wind blows bleak. The coat, 
however, need not be so long as to be unsightly ; and warm cloth- 
ing, even in a cool stable, will, with plenty of honest grooming, 
keep the hair sufficiently smooth and glossy to satisfy the most fas- 
tidious. The over-heated air of a close stable saves much of this 
grooming, and, therefore, the idle attendant unscrupulously sacri- 
fices the health and safety of the horse. Of nothing are we more 
certain than that the majority of the maladies of the horse, and those 
of the worst and most fatal character, are, directly or indirectly, to 
be attributed to the unnatural heat of the stable, and the sudden 
change of the animal from a high to a low or from a low to a high 
temperature.” — Youatt's Horse, p. 346. 
The effect of temperature on the wool of sheep is remarkable. 
When they are removed from a warm to a colder climate, the wool 
produced becomes coarser, until at last it degenerates into hair. 
The hair of other animals is affected in a similar way. Those 
which produce in Russia and other northern portions of the world 
the richest furs, are found in the warmer climates with a thin and 
worthless covering of hair. 
If, however, the horse is too often subjected to a temperature, for 
the sake of his coat, much too elevated, the ox and the sheep are as 
