The management and treatment of the horse in the stable, field, and ...

8 The Management and Treatment of the Horse,
through the roof. I don't mean those stove pipes so
commonly used, which are not more than six inches in
diameter, but shafts at least two feet square to carry off
the foul air and ammonia that constantly arises in the
stable. I have seen some of the stables which were
possessed of these blessings, made into dens as foul as it
is possible to conceive, by the ignorance of grooms who
had charge of them, keeping the air passages entirely
stopped with hay or other litter to keep the stable hot,
to make the horse's coat shine like silk and lay close, not
thinking that the same animal had to go out of his hot
stable on a cold wet day, and perhaps stand in the wet
and cold at a covert side for an hour at a stretch,
shivering like a dog in a wet sack ; and the moment the
cold air caught tha horse his coat would be up on end,
and looking like a monster porcupine. It is an easy
thing for a man to put on a great coat on a cold day ;
then, if the weather is cold, why not put extra clothing
on the horse to keep him warm ? Never resort to the
false economy of keeping the stable hot at the expense
of the health of your animal, or you will find yourself
in the position of many grooms, who have their horses
always delicate feeders, and for ever coughing with any
change of the wind. Then they commence to put their
arms down their horse's throat every morning to give
him a cough ball, made of linseed meal and treacle, and
enough nitre and camphor to make a taste and smell,
and possessing the same virtues as the old woman's
bread pills, which she warranted to do neither good or
harm*
I went to look over some stables not 100 miles from