494 Journal of Agriculture. [lo Aug., 1910. 



effect in the Nhill district, where a competition of the kind was inaugurated 

 three years ago. There were twenty-four yearling entries at the first com- 

 petition, and tlie numbers have increased each- spring since. I shall be very 

 much surprised if the season we are just about to enter on does not show 

 an encouraging increase in the number of stallions reared in that district, 

 as a result of the increased attention given to the rearing of young stock 

 through the establishment of the Sires Produce Stakes. 



Mr. C. W. Tindall. the noted Shire horse breeder, says that nothing 

 has done more in influencing the ad\ancement of the Shire horse than the 

 Foal Shows, which are now held throughout England each autumn after 

 weaning time. 



I IT. Breeding Methods, 



Coming now to the third suggestion I ha\e to make as being a potent 

 factor in the continued inability of this State to maintain the necessary 

 standard of excellence in its stud horses, viz.. unscientific breeding, 

 methods, I would point out, in the first place, that from time to time the 

 very best blood available in the old country has been imported, particularly 

 in the case of both breeds of draught horses — the Clydesdale and the 

 Shire — and also in the case of thoroughbreds. As regards the latter, by 

 virtue of the English and Australian Stud Books, the breed has been kept 

 pure. Thoroughbred has been mated on to thoroughbred, with the result 

 that there has been a maintenance of all the qualities of the breed, and 

 Australia has been able to send Australian bred thoroughbreds to compete 

 successfully with the parent stock at home, as well as to keep up a whole- 

 some competition with England in the regular supply of sires of the breed 

 to India and other Eastern countries. 



With draught horses, however, no such care in maintaining the purity 

 of the breeds has been exercised. There has been throughout an indis- 

 criminate and unenlightened crossing of the two breeds which is inde- 

 fensible so far as the breeding of horses for stud purposes is concerned — 

 a disregard indeed, of the first principles of scientific breeding, which it 

 is hard to understand except on the supposition that the breeders have 

 failed to thoroughlv realize the absolute distinctiveness of the tw^o breeds. 

 Whatever may have been the position thirty years ago, w"hen the Clydesdale 

 Stud Book and the Shire Horse Stud Book were first established, as regards 

 the admission of horses of doubtful breed, there can be no manner of 

 doubt that the breeds have been kept absolutely distinct since then, as I 

 hope to be able to demonstrate with the aid of the accompanying illustra- 

 tions of the most famous individuals of each breed at the present day and 

 in times gone by. The only loop-hole for the introduction of foreign blood 

 into either breed during the whole thirty years of breeding under Stud 

 Book rules is, that on the dam's side one outcross of foreign blood three 

 generations back does not disqualify for entry ; that is. fresh blood may be 

 introduced on the dam's side after three crosses of registered blood have 

 been grafted on it. In other words, an animal with seven-eighths pure 

 blood (registered) and one-eighth foreign blood on the dam's side is eligible 

 for Stud Book entry ; but on the sire's side the registered blood must be 

 unbroken back to the formation of the Stud Book. So that the chance cf 

 variation in type through this loop-hole is infinitesimal. Indeed, so strongly 

 is purity of breeding — as guaranteed by registration in the Clydesdale 

 Stud Book — insisted on in Scotland, that it is stated authoritatively in the 

 most recent publication on the subject {Horses of the British Emfire. by 

 Sir Humphrey de Trafford) that " only one draught stallion travelled in 

 Scotland during the season 1906 whose stock is ineligible for registration 



