THE PERCHEROX HOUSE. 73 



refused a record in its pages. The prices of colts would 

 likewise gain by this measure, the effect being a powerful 

 impulse given to breeding. But it would be necessary to 

 be very careful about ever admitting any foreign blood, in 

 order that the recorded herds might accumulate more and 

 more an ancestral force. 



The Stud-book would offer still another advantage, that 

 of permitting us to find again the good types, should 

 Perche some day, in consequence of bad crossings, or from 

 want of judgment, deviate from the true way. In fact, 

 desire of gaining too much and of enjoying too fast at 

 present tempts every body into innovations. Our age, so 

 eager to enjoy, and so quick in all enterprises, has no longer 

 the patience to wait for the improvements that time and 

 study can alone confirm and solidly establish. It wants 

 things off-hand, and for this it is often satisfied with adul- 

 terated products ; hence, these injudicious crossings ; hence, 

 this mania for mixing together without discernment a 

 mania which threatens to destroy our valuable national 

 breeds. 



In the midst of all this, the opposition of the army, of 

 the government stud-stables, and of the trade in heavy 

 horses, bring forth new complications. The army, neither 

 occupied in breeding nor raising, and naturally remaining 

 beyond the consequences it causes, encourages these cross- 

 ings, obtaining thereby, more rapidly, the horses it needs. 

 But how many of the horses bred by these means are not 

 only unfit for army service, but also unfit for any service ! 

 Indeed, with a blood stallion and a common mare, if at 

 the first crossing, among the thin-flanked, imperfect ones, 

 there happen to be a passable horse, good, and with a cer- 

 tain degree of style, ordinarily all progress ends there. 

 For, by the use of the latter as a reproducer, an animal 

 ungainly and without value will most certainly be the 

 result, except by chance. The races of the south affiliate 

 with the Arab, and those of the north with the English ; 

 4 



