The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-01-28
FARM AND 1IOTSEHOLD,
Horse Stables.

The breathing of pure air is necessary to
the existence and the health of man and
beast. 1t is comparatively lately that this
has been admitted even in the management
of our best stables. They have been close
and foul, instead of airy, and cool, and
wholesome.
If there is a loft above the stable, the
ceiling should be plastered, in order to pre-
vent the foul air from penetrating to the
hay above, and injuring both its taste and
wholesomeneSS: and no openings should be
allowed above the racks, through which the
hay may be thrown into them; for they
will permit the foul air to ascend to the
provender, and also in the act of filling the
rack, and while the horse is eagerly gazing
upward for his food, grass seed may fall
into the eye, and produce considerable
inflammation. At other times, when the
careless groom has left open the ap-door,
a stream Of cold air beats down on the head
of the horse.
The stable with loft over it should
never be less than twelve feet high, and
proper ventilation should be secured, either
by tubes carried through the roof, or by
gratings close to the ceiling. The gratings
or openings should be enlarged or contrac-
ted by means of covering or shutter, so
BILE may possess nearly the same tempera-
ture with the open air, and in winter a
temperature of 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 glossy
coat. The latter, it is thought, cannot be
obtained without the former.
TO this we should reply, that in winter
q thin. glossy coat is not desirable. Nature
gives to every animal Il warmer clothing
when the cold weather approaches.
The horse-the agriculture horse espec-
ally-acquires a thicker and heightened
coat, in order to defend him from the suf-
fering cold. Man puts on ali additional
and warmer covering, and his comfort is
increased and his health preserved by it.
lie who knows anything of the farmers
horse, or cares about his enjoyment will
not object to a coat little longer, and
roughened when the winter wind blows
bleak,
The coat however, needs not to be so
long as to be unsightly; and warm clothing,
even in cool stable, will, with plenty of
honest grooming, keep the hair sufficiently
smoothe and glossy to satisfy the most fas-
tidious. The over-hcated air of close
stable saves much of this grooming, and
sacrifices the health and safety of the horse
When we have presently to treat of the
hair and skin of the horse, this will be
placed in a somewhat different point of
view.
If the stable is close, the air will not only
be hot, but foul. The breathing of every
animal contaminates it; and when in the
course of the night, with every aperature
stopped, it passes again and again through
the lungs the blood cannot undergo its
proper and healthy change; digestion will
not be so perfectly performed, aud all the
functions Of life are injured. Let the
owner Of q valuable horse think of his
passing twenty or twenty-five out of the
twenty-four hours in this facilitating
atmosphere. Nature does wonders in ena-
bling every animal to accommodate itself
to the situation in which it is placed, and
the horse that lives in the stable oven suf-
fers less from it than would scarcely be
conceived possible; but he does not, and
cannot, possess the power and the hardi-
hood which he would acquire under other
circumstances
The air Of the Improperly close and
heated stable is still further contaminated
by the urine and dung, which rapidly fer
ment there, and give out stimulating and
unwnolcSome VaporS. when person first
enters an ill-managed stable, and especially
early i'll the morning, he is annoyed, not
only by the heat OF the confined air, but by
a pungent smell, resembling hartshorn :;
and can he be surprised at the Inflammation
of the eyes, and the chronic cough, and the
disease of the lungs, by which the animal,
who has been shut up in this Initiated atmos-
phere, is often attacked or if CHAMBERS and
farcy should occasionally break ont in such
stables? 1t has been ascertained by chem
zeal experiment that the urine of the horse
contains in it an exceedingly large quantity
of hartshorn and not only so, but that,
influenced by the heat of 4 crowded stable,
and possibly by other decompositiops that
are going forward at the same time, this
ammoniacal vapor begins to be rapidly
given ont almost Immediately after the
urine is voided.- American Stock, JouyRa.