But the wisest course that an amateur can pursue is to take a loss quickly. Just as soon as you find that you do not want a horse, sell him. If there be a purchaser ready at hand, well and good; if not there is sure to be an auction block not far away. CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE STABLE AND ITS MANAGEMENT Badly-constructed, badly-kept, and badly-managed stables are the contributing causes to most of the illnesses that horses suffer from. As nine stables out of ten in America are bad in all these three regards, I am confirmed in the belief that horses are very hardy animals instead of the delicate creatures that we sometimes think they are. That so many of them should be equal to hard and continuous work considering the conditions that surround them when they are at home is really quite remarkable. Even on breeding farms, where it is the business of the proprietors to rear fine animals for sale, the stables more frequently than not are wretched barns not fit even for the lodgement of mules. This is the case in Kentucky, even in the Blue Grass region. In many of the stables there I have seen tons of manure, that were most valuable for fertilization, left in the stables for no other reason that I could fathom than that it seemed to be no one’s business to take it away. “Why don’t you spread it on the pastures, or use it on the ploughed fields?” I asked one gentleman. “Oh, the ground does not need it,” he replied. I did not like to go any further for fear of seeming intrusive. Then again I did not believe that a man who thought tilled ground even in the limestone enriched land of the Blue Grass section would not be better for stable manure would bother particularly about the advantages of keeping stables clean. Stables should be light not dark. There is a notion as old as the hills that a stable should be a dark and somber place. There are those who still hold stoutly to this view. Why a stable should be dark and the living room of a human being light, I cannot conceive. Light and air are the great purifying agents. Germs of various kinds multiply mightily in the dark, while many are killed by the light. The only reason that is given for a dark stable is that constant light in a horse’s eyes is likely to injure his organs of sight. I grant that cheerfully. Still there is no reason why there should not be light without the light shining directly into the eyes of the horses. It is as easy as possible to place the windows above the heads of the horses, and even to shield them with shutters that open upwards, shutters such as are so generally used on seaside cottages.