354 



The Country Genileman^s Magazine 



improve them as much as possible, and that 

 their owners might contribute to the uphold- 

 ing of racing. In these days of the turf 

 every horse, except in the occasional cases 

 of penalties just alluded to, had an equal 

 chance according to his merits. The best 

 racehorse was then the most valuable, because 

 he could win the most ; but once the intro- 

 duction of the system of handicapping, by 

 weighting the animals according to the esti- 

 mate of their capabilities, so that, by adding 

 to the weight to be carried by first-class 

 animals, and taking from that to be put on 

 inferior ones, thus endeavouring to equalize 

 the winning chances of all, a very inferior 

 horse, provided he is deemed worse than he 

 really is, is much more valuable for racing, 

 because he has a better chance of victory 

 than the best horse in existence that has 

 achieved the character of being so. 



Of late years the distances run are short, 

 and the weights carried but light. Horses 

 are bred accordingly for such very moderate 



requirements. Speed is the great desidera" 

 tum ; weight-carrying power is not required. 

 As a general rule, power must be sacrificed 

 to obtain an increase of speed, and such is 

 the case in the present mode of breeding 

 race-horses. There are certainly some well- 

 marked exceptions, but they are so rare that 

 their existence does not affect the argument. 

 In former years there were Royal plates run 

 in heats of 4 miles each. It is to be pre- 

 sumed those on the Curragh were of good 

 Irish measure. The weights also were heavy. 

 Not unfrequently there was one dead heat, 

 and that four heats, 16 miles, had to be run 

 before the race was won. A reference to 

 turf statistics will show how numerous the 

 entries were frequently for such races, and 

 how desperate were the contests. How many 

 of our modern racehorses would be capable 

 of such feats— particularly the carrying of 

 the weight ? for which they would be totally 

 unfitted, from their inability to support it with 

 impunity during such a trying contest. 



WEST HIGHLAND CA TTLE. 



IN the Field of 2 1 st ult. there is a very cha- 

 racteristic engraving of the West High- 

 lander, drawn by Harrison Weir, to which is 

 appended the following remarks on the 

 breed, by Mr John Robertson, BlairAthole :— 

 At the present time the breeding and rear- 

 ing of cattle has become a specially impor- 

 tant subject. The increase of the popula- 

 tion, the wonderful prosperity of trade and 

 the consequent high rate of wages, have 

 combined to increase the consumption of 

 animal food to a very high degree, while the 

 supply has not at all increased in proportion ; 

 and, with the present high rate of wages, in 

 agriculture as well as in all other departments 

 of industry, but with no corresponding rise 

 in the price of grain, farmers will be driven 

 to abandon tillage to a great extent, and to 

 take to the production of animal food, in 

 which branch of their calling they have now 



the only hope of coping successfully with the 

 foreign producer. It may not, therefore, be 

 unprofitable to glance at some of the sources 

 whence our supplies of animal food are 

 derived. For the last twenty or twenty-five 

 years the breeding and rearing of cattle has, 

 from various causes — chief among which are 

 the abolition of the corn laws and the de- 

 velopment of the railway system — become a 

 prominent feature in Scotch farming; and 

 perhaps the best proof of the success with 

 which this department of agriculture has 

 been cultivated, not only as regards the 

 native breeds, but breeds more properly 

 English, is the immense traftic in fat cattle 

 which has sprung up from Scotland to the 

 London market. The breeds of feeding 

 cattle chiefly reared in Scotland are the 

 shorthorn, the polled, the West Highland, 

 and crosses. 



