CHAPTEE II. 



HINTS TO YOUNG BREEDERS. 



Owing to ignorance and carelessness, the breeding of 

 horses has generally been regarded by the agriculturist 

 as a sure road to ruin, though, with the exercise of a 

 reasonable amount of care, it should be one of the most 

 successful departments of agriculture. Hitherto the 

 selection of sires and dams, the treatment of foals, and 

 their subsequent schooling, have chiefly demanded the 

 attention of large breeders of thoroughbred stock. The 

 tenant farmer and small landowners consider the risks 

 attendant upon horse-breeding to be out of proportion 

 to the chances of profit, and so have not taken the 

 trouble to examine how the risks may be minimised. 

 We ourselves think that no paddock of two acres or 

 more is complete without a mare and her foal ; and as 

 many of our readers who are not farmers doubtless 

 possess such a paddock, we address our remarks to 

 them, as well as to the tenant farmers, to whom profit 

 must be the primary consideration. We often hear a 

 farmer urge as an argument against horse-breeding that 

 he has to wait so long for a return of his capital, as if 

 the same argument did not apply with equal, if not with 

 greater, force, to any branch of agriculture. Certainly 



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