30 THE PEKCHEKON HORSE. 



It will be objected that these stallions, before disappear- 

 ing, had already served ; I know this. But how served ? 

 They had served at two or three years, before their com- 

 plete development, and it was at the age at which they 

 would have been most useful, that they were withdrawn 

 from their district, and the same thing was true with the 

 best mares. 



Several departments carried off great numbers; they 

 were sent everywhere. A great many proprietors bought 

 them. Thus disappeared, gradually, the flower of the 

 breeding-mares. The race was cut off in its prime. Perche 

 stretched its sails to the winds of the present without 

 thinking of the future ! 



Stallions of all kinds now came forward ; stallions from 

 Brittany, Picardy, Caux, and Boulogne. The heaviest were 

 preferred. The change was so rapid, that, to-day, in many 

 places, there does not remain the slightest trace of genu- 

 ine Percheron blood. It is a mixture which betrays it- 

 self to the eye by coarse forms, foreign to the original 

 type, and in the morale by a sensible loss of that generous 

 spirit, and of that indescribable something that we so 

 much admired. Perche would formerly have disowned 

 stock lacking the eastern character; still, their presence 

 is not without instruction. It gives the measure of the 

 great climatic qualities of this province, and proves what 

 it could have done with well-chosen animals. 



Such is its force of assimilation, that after nourishing 

 some generations upon its soil, it is able to reform them, 

 and impart that sacred fire, and that build, which can only 

 come from the nourishment of its hills. 



The department authorities, unwearied by the slight 

 success of their first attempts, renew their efforts, from 

 year to year, to oppose the progress of this degeneration, 

 and endeavor to combat it by the strongest measures. 



The department of Eure and Loir, undeterred by the 

 costly and disastrous failure of the Bonneval breeding 



