36 THE PEKCHEEO^ HOESE. 



ment disposes, augmented even by private contributions, 

 are not inexhaustible, it is urgent that the prizes, always 

 liberal and remunerative, being from two to four hundred 

 francs for mares, and from four to eight hundred francs 

 for stallions, should be accorded only to specimens of real 

 merit. Quality, when it effects the regeneration of a race, 

 is always preferable to quantity. 



It is, especially, necessary to excite earnest breeders by 

 all possible means, to preserve or to buy remarkable 

 Percherons, presenting in their form and character the 

 type of the stallion. And, if the prizes of four to eight 

 hundred francs, of which we have just asked the institu- 

 tion, should not appear to the authorities of the depart- 

 ments a sufficient means to impart the necessary impulse 

 for the complete success of this measure, the departments 

 might themselves buy some remarkable types, and either 

 use them, themselves, in gratuitously serving the finest 

 mares, or in confiding them to good farmers, in whose 

 hands they would be given the prize and used almost for 

 nothing, as long as their health permitted them to be prof- 

 itably kept. After a certain number of years these stal- 

 lions might even become the property of their keepers, or 

 they might, from the beginning, be granted them at reduced 

 prices, with the obligation, on the one side, that they 

 should be used with judgment and preserved with care, 

 and on the other side, with the promise of a largely 

 remunerative prize. Love of gain has driven the peasant 

 to strip himself of everything he owned that was good ; 

 it now belongs to the authorities, by the incentive of gain, 

 to induce this same peasant to pursue a wiser course. 



Oppose as much as possible the use of stallions before 

 fully four years old, and the fillies being put to breeding 

 before reaching their third year. This can only be attained 

 by giving the prize, in the class of fillies, to such as have 

 been served at the age of three years, by stallions of at 

 least four years old. 



