At the seats of country gentlemen, this is rather a common appendage to the stables. It is employed for washing, and for watering the horses. They, and sometimes the carriage, are dragged through it twice or thrice to remove the road-mud. The horses are allowed to drink from it, the ducks and geese to swim in it, and the place appears to be useful for drowning supermumerary pups and kittens.

As a bath for water-fowl the pond has its use; but as a place for watering and washing the horses, it is useless and pernicious. The groom or the coachman, if lazy, may consider it a great convenience. He does not know, or he is not very willing to know, that it is not proper to drive the horses through this cold water; that it makes them subject to swelled legs, to grease, to colic, and to cold; and perhaps he never considers that this dirty stagnant water is not very pleasant or wholesome to drink. It is not the place nor the way 'in which horses should be either watered or washed. If there be no other reservoir for the stables, the water should be taken to the horse, not the horse to the water. To take him there for washing his legs, is a true sloven's expedient Water for drinking should be as near to the stable as pos sible; when it has to be carried any distance, the horse is often neglected.