QN THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF HORSES. 
303 
almost constantly attended with staring of the coat, often with a 
shh ering fit, and sometimes with consequences still more serious. 
In cold weather the non-commissioned officers should he careful 
to keep the doors shut, at all events one door, during the stable 
hour, and more particularly whilst they are watering the horses; 
a precaution which would effectually check any great current of 
wind, and they would find it would tend very much to the good 
condition and kindly appearance of their horses coats. 1 he prac¬ 
tice of leaving the doors open during the stable hour is, I am con¬ 
vinced, a mere habit; there can be no necessity for it, and, with a 
little perseverance on the part of the non-commissioned officers, 
it might, I think, be corrected. 
1 he men seeing their horses* coats staring, without reflecting 
as to the cause, naturally enough conclude they are kept too cold, 
and then they are very apt to fly to the opposite extreme; for 
when they leave stables they seem to think they can never shut 
them up close enough: then, if left to themselves, they w ould not 
only block the bottoms of the doors, but stop up every hole and 
every crevice in such a manner as to prevent the possibility of 
any air whatever entering the stable. The pernicious conse¬ 
quence of this practice is most to be apprehended during the night, 
when horses are shut up for so many hours together; when, 
being denied a supply of fresh air, they are obliged to breathe 
that which was shut up with them in the stable over and over 
again, until, its vital principle being exhausted, it becomes noxious 
and unfit for the purposes of life. Besides the mischief likely 
to accrue from forcing horses to live in a vitiated atmosphere, 
there is also to be taken into consideration the violent change, in 
regard to temperature, to which they are subjected by such in¬ 
considerate treatment. Dragoons in this respect seem to act with 
the greatest inconsistency: at one time they are unnecessarily 
exposing their horses to all the vicissitudes of a changeable cli¬ 
mate ; and at another they would shut them up so close, as at 
once almost to suffocate them with heat and impure air. The 
men wish to see their horses* coats look smooth and w ell, but 
this object they would be much more likely to attain by pre¬ 
serving a moderate and more uniform temperature in the stable; 
carefully keeping the doors shut in the daytime, and allowing a 
free ventilation in them during the night. 
II. When the horses are taken out to exercise, or to water in 
the morning, nothing is more common than to see the stable 
doors left open; and as there are usually two or three left in 
in eac h stable, these are often exposed to a bleak current of wind 
blowing upon them until the rest return. The stable man, i! 
