STABLE MANAGEMENT. 
674 
are combinations and decompositions going on during the life of plants 
and animals, which we cannot repeat or copy. Why the tiniest plant, the 
most minute lichen, moss, seaweed, or fungus ; the pigmy insect whose life 
and generation is compassed by a single day, as well as the microscopic 
animalcule, compound matter, and change its state and form, in a manner 
which defies our steam-engines and steam-hammers to accomplish ; and 
which all the resources of heat and light and electricity, directed and 
backed by the ingenuity and intellect of man, have failed even to approach. 
— Pharmaceutical Journal. 
{To be continued .) 
STABLE MANAGEMENT 
What a mass of consequences is comprehended in that 
short sentence, “ Stable Management !” What a host of ruined 
constitutions and crippled limbs has it not to account for ! 
What new diseases introduced, and what old ones perpetuated, 
by stable management — verily, we should write it rather mis- 
management ! for how in fortune’s name the absence of every- 
thing that could tend to an animal’s comfort, and the presence 
of everything that could tend to the contrary, came to be 
dignified with the title, we profess ourselves somewhat at a 
loss to understand. (e Stable management !” Shades of 
departed steeds, from the time that man placed the iron in 
your mouths, and claimed by might the right to make you 
slaves, we can fancy the concentrated irony of your version of 
stable management ; we can fancy the “ high-mettled racer” 
telling of his aching limbs and cracked sinews, his heart- 
sickness from the perpetual hot-air bath in which he spent 
his best days : we can hear the hack tell of his bad provender, 
his eyes smarting from the accumulated pungent gases of his 
badly ventilated home ; while the cart-horse is sullenly 
groaning his disapprobation of the chaff on which he often 
tries to live and do his duty. What a history we should get 
of “ stable management” if its victims could state their 
grievances ! 
But we are forgetting that our intention is to be practical, 
and not speculative ; let us come to plain statements and 
answer the question. What is the object of any system of 
stable management ? We imagine, to keep the animals in the 
best health and working condition on the most economical 
plan. How are we to do it? According to all that has been 
said and written on the matter, we may select from twenty 
systems for the purpose, each one claiming to be the best. Now 
we are not going to talk any nonsense about keeping the 
animals in a condition as nearly as may be to a state of nature ; 
