THE FARMSIi'S MAGAZINE. 



MARCH, 1860. 



PLATE I. 



BARON IPPOLYTE PETROFFSKI. 



A. CELEBRATED RUSSIAN HORSE-BUYER AND BREEDER. 



In the thirtj^-six letter alphabet of Russia Baron 

 PetrofFski is known as "Ummoiuml Nenrijsobevez." 

 His residence is a short distance out of Moscow, 

 on the rif^ht hand of the road in Petroffski Park, 

 which received its name in honour of him. The 

 house is a two-storied one, built in the Oriental 

 style, entirely embedded in gardens, and with a 

 large set of stables attached. These are, after all, 

 merely his head-quarters during the season of 

 thick-ribbed ice, and hardly furnish any index to 

 the magnitude of his possessions, which consist of 

 three large estates in the interior. On each of these 

 he keeps nearly a thousand serfs; but his sway is not 

 of a very iron kind, and those that are not engaged 

 in agriculture are all taught some useful trade. He 

 produces everything required for himself and this 

 huge family on his own estates, from skeepskins 

 down to his renowned kish-le-shee, a species of 

 mead compounded from apple-juice, honej% and 

 flour, and with an aromatic rose-water flavour. 



Sixty-three summers have done very little to- 

 wards blanching his hair or dimming his sharp 

 hazel eyes, and he still carries his light wiry frame 

 as erect as beseems a captain of the Imperial 

 Guard. No one who has visited him can forget 

 that gentle courteous bearing, or the enthusiasm 

 with which he speaks of everything English, and 

 of everything 'cute in connection with horse- 

 management. Geese, sheep, pigs, and dogs (not 

 forgetting the favourite black terrier which has 

 been painted into one of his jiictures), are all Eng- 

 lish ; but we are not so sure as to the nativity of 

 his fighting geese. They are stouter than the 

 common geese, and on shorter legs, and are put 

 down just like game-cocks on the green sod for the 

 fray, which they solemnly conduct by seizing each 

 other by the beak, and striking furiously with the 

 butts of their wings. 



The English Stud Book is his Koran, and he 

 himself has been at the pains of publishing, in the 

 Russian language, a most complete synopsis of the 

 celebrated stallions in England from 1811. It 

 enters with the greatest accuracy into the number 

 of years they have been in the stud, the price at 

 which they covered, and the dams of their most 

 celebrated winners. Hence it was not surprising 

 that, after such an exciting study, he should have 

 determined that either Teddington or Rifleman 

 should be a Russian Touchstone ; and his son has 

 , just purchased the latter from Sii Tatton Sykes for 

 2,500 gs., for the Government. 



OLD SERIES.] 



"You like the horses of the old stock," he says, 

 in writing to a friend, " and old form, just the same, 

 which I prefer to the new-fashioned. I would like 

 very much to try the best Enghsh horses with my 

 poor fellows. 1 call my horses poor fellows be- 

 cause they are badly fed, and badly prepared. We 

 have only two months to prepare horses, that is 

 May and June. The horses are led 500 versts,* 

 with all the road inconveniences. They change 

 water and food, and suff'er much." 



The Baron breeds his horses at one of his estates, 

 and they do their work in the winter, without shoes 

 on frozen snow, regularly harrowed for the pur- 

 pose. The ground is, however, mostly flat, without 

 any extent or variety of gallops. The breeding 

 farm is bordered by a noble river of great width, 

 and in summer, when the flies teaze the young 

 foals to distraction, they dash in and swim, while 

 their dams watch them placidly from the bank, and 

 occasionally join in the sport. Many of them have 

 excellent hind-leg action, and their owner inva- 

 riably attributes it to their early swimming habits. 

 The brood mares alone number about 160, some 

 of which are still unbroken, and most of them 

 never trained. The blood is, strictly speaking, a 

 cross between the Russian and Arab mares, and 

 the horses imported by Government, Memnon, 

 General Chasse, Van Tromp, Andover, &c.; and 

 the stock are generally browns, of great length and 

 on short legs, having all the Arab deficiency of 

 shoulder, but catching the Eastern character in 

 their fine eye and small nostrils, and bearing the 

 Sir Hercules crest at the root of their tails. 



The Baron also rather prides himself upon his 

 breed of trotting horses ; and he gave for Barkay, 

 one of the best sires of that stamp, 11,000 roubles, 

 without the least remorse. We beheve that one of 

 his best once trotted eight versts under the sixteen 

 minutes ; and they are also used for running in 

 troskies on the ice. 



A Surplice and an Irish Birdcatcher brood mare 

 went out for him, along with Rifleman, who was 

 to reach Moscow last month. In 1859, his stud 

 consisted of seventeen horses in work, fifty brood 

 mares, twenty-five two-year-olds, and nearly as many 

 both of yearhngs and foals ; while Signal, Granite, 

 and Bombadier are the principal sires. The Sig- 

 nals are his best stock. 



* Verst, I of a mile. 



[VOL. LIL— No. 3. 



