210 BREEDING 



receptacles, therefore, is indispensable to good management and success 

 in breeding operations. 



STOCKING AND OVERSTOCKING 



Stocking and overstocking are clearly relative terms. The number 

 of animals a definite area of land will carry will of course depend upon 

 the fertility of the soil and its power of sustaining growth through the 

 year, as well as upon the nature and character of tlie herbage it produces. 

 Horses have a strong predilection for the finer grasses, and from a grazing 

 point of view may be regai'ded as wasteful feeders. Nothing is more 

 striking than the way in which they will clear the grass oft" certain patches 

 down to the roots, and continue to graze the ground over again and again, 

 while other parts of the pasture are covered with a luxuriant growth 

 which they altogether neglect. Acreage, therefore, is no absolute measure 

 of the sustaining power of pasture land, but rather the quantity and 

 quality of suitable herbage it produces. It is on account of this residue 

 of rough grass that bullocks prove so useful after horses. They eat off" 

 the coarse herbage, and lay bare a fresh succulent bite which horses will 

 attack when there is a shortage of the better kinds. 



Among other reasons, it is this partiality to certain parts of pastures 

 which has rendered it desirable to provide a large area of ground for 

 horses to run over. In a pamphlet published by Sir Walter Gilbey on 

 Young Racehorses, it is pointed out that " one yearling to every five or 

 six acres is plenty ". 



Nothing tends so much to the deterioration of pasture land as over- 

 stocking with horses. By this is not to be understood the mere jjlacing^ 

 on it of more horses than it can fairly carry and support, but grazing^ 

 it year after year without intermission or association with cattle. By 

 this method of treatment the fine herbage becomes less abundant 

 and the coarse rejected variety, remaining to seed, is more largely 

 distributed. 



Moreover, if wet or boggy as a whole or in parts, the soil becomes 

 foul, and serves as a suitable environment for the growth and maturation 

 of the larvae of equine parasites, which, when once introduced, continue 

 to multiply year by year, invading first one animal and then another, 

 until under favourable conditions the great bulk of the breeding-stock 

 become more or less sevei-ely infected. 



Poverty, stunted growth, infertility, and abortion are among the con- 

 sequences of this too common mismanagement. Land devoted to horse- 

 breeding should be periodically grazed with cattle or mown for hay, and. 



