STABLE. 
_ perfectly sound and even floors, wholly removed, 
—and in stables with cobble-paved floors, allowed 
to remain just in sufficient quantity to protect the 
feet. “If retained,” remarks Mr. Winter, “it pre- 
vents the quick and perfect drainage of the stall; it 
heats the feet and legs, causing a rapid wiring-in 
of the heels, contraction, thrushes, cracked heels, 
and swelled legs. A bed in the daytime entices 
the animal to lie down too much, and often pro- 
vokes foul feeding. Some of our cavalry stables 
are a disgrace as well asa loss to the country. 
At the dictate of the commanding officer, who 
possibly likes to see the horses ‘comfortable,’ 
they are kept constantly bedded up to their 
knees: the result is, that there is scarcely a 
horse fit for actual service in the regiment. If 
attempts were made purposely to produce dis- 
ease of the extremities, none could be found 
more destructively efficient than this baneful 
practice. Many of the evils which are falsely 
attributed to concussion, hard roads, bad shoe- 
ing, &c., are the evident results of this unnatural 
manner of keeping the feet. Veterinarians who 
wish to act honourably by their employers, should 
be loud in their remonstrances against the con- 
tinuation of this destructive stable custom. It 
is their duty to point out its injurious tendency. 
The most ancient writer on cavalry affairs ex- 
tant, Xenophon, is specific on this point. He 
says, ‘It is good to enjoin the groom to carry 
out to one place, every day, the dung and straw 
from under the horse. When he does this, he 
will remove it with the greatest ease, and, at 
the same time, do a benefit to the horse.’ The 
Arab litters his khayle with a shallow bed of 
dry horse-dung, which is daily removed and ex- 
posed to the sun: a similar practice obtains 
throughout Persia. In Egypt the floor of the 
stable is covered with fine desert sand, which is 
repeatedly changed, and never allowed to be 
saturated with moisture; and in no country in 
the world are the feet and legs of horses more 
free from disease.” The rapid removal of am- 
moniacal vapours may be greatly aided by strew- 
ing gypsum on the floor, or by placing a thin layer 
of charcoal slightly moistened. with sulphuric 
acid on a board or slab in some part inaccessible 
to the horses; and when the substance thus used 
becomes saturated with ammonia, it is a rich 
manure, and may either be employed alone as a 
dressing for almost any crop, or mixed with 
guano. The temperature of every stable should 
be regulated by means of the ventilators, and 
ascertained by means of a thermometer, and kept 
at about 55° in winter and between 60° and 65° 
' In summer. 
Every stable ought to be so framed, .as to be 
convertible in a few minutes into loose boxes, 
and as easily reconvertible into its proper cha- 
racter; and this may be effected principally by 
the simple contrivance of having every alternate 
partition moveable. Or, at all events, two stalls 
in every stable ought to be convertible into a 
IV. 
STACK. 321 
loose box by the removal of the intermediate 
partition, The occasional placing of horses in 
loose boxes instead of stalls serves some emi- 
nently useful purposes in ordinary stable man- 
agement, and is a powerful therapeutic measure 
in all cases of injury from over-exertion, and in 
many kinds of the most ordinary diseases; and 
it is not only becoming more general than for- 
merly in all sorts of well-managed establishments, 
but is even regarded as essential to the economy 
and the good conduct of every stable of proper 
character. “It would be well,” remarks Dela- 
bere Blaine, “ were in-door horses more generally 
accustomed to spend their leisure time in boxes 
than stalls. Boxes are advantageous to the 
jaded horse, by encouraging him to lie down 
during the day; they are advantageous to the 
idle horse, by encouraging him to exercise him- 
self. By means of boxes, the evils of long frosts 
to the hunter are avoided, and the unrestrained 
enjoyment of freedom is relished by all. A loose 
box wholly unconnected with the stable is also a 
valuable appendage to a gentleman’s establish- 
ment,—it may thus with impunity be the recep- 
tacle of a contagious case. The detached box 
should be so constructed as to be capable of 
being cooled to nearly the temperature of the 
external air, or, when necessary, to be made as 
warm as requisite for some cases of sickness. 
No projections should be allowed in its walls to 
hurt the hips in cases of falling from weakness, 
staggers, &c. It should, also, have a grate in 
the centre communicating with an outer cesspool, 
with a general slight leaning of the flooring to 
the grating. Into a large box of this description 
every horse taken up from grass should be first 
put, to prevent the access of the worst colds to 
which horses are liable, which are those caught 
on the sudden removal from a cool into a heated 
temperature.” 
STACHYS. See Hupau-Nurtie, 
STACHYTARPHETA. A genus of ornamen- 
tal, exotic plants, of the verbena family. Nearly 
a dozen species have been introduced to British 
gardens from Ceylon, Cayenne, the West Indies, 
and South America; and several more are known. 
The introduced species comprise annuals, bi- 
ennials, herbaceous perennials, and evergreen 
shrubs; they vary in height from 12 to 40 
inches; three carry respectively white, orange, 
and violet flowers, and all the rest carry blue 
flowers; and most bloom in summer, and love a 
soil of peaty loam. The popular name of some 
of the earliest known kinds is bastard vervain. 
STACK. A large pile of sheaf-corn, hay, turf, 
or other matter built and thatched for protection 
from the weather. But piles of hay are more 
properly called ricks, and piles of turf more pro- 
perly turf-stacks ; and piles of sheaf-corn formed 
at the time of harvesting, and generally situated 
in the yard immediately adjacent to the barn, 
are the chief and truest stacks. These vary in 
form and size according to the usages of dis- 
x 
