THE FERCHERON HORSE. 77 



family. He should only be owned by the wealthy fanner. 

 And, on the other side, the latter should never raise his 

 eyes to the blood horse, which should be left to those who 

 have been a long time accustomed to the risks inseparable 

 from his breeding and training. 



A final word will make my thoughts better understood. 



I desire to speak of the financial question, which is 

 every thing in breeding and in agriculture. The best and 

 the only manner of considering this is to compare the 

 breeder at the start, at the beginning of his career, and 

 when his career is ended, to verify the results. This opera- 

 tion is nothing short of a settlement of accounts. 



In my travels I became acquainted with two neighbor- 

 ing districts. One was rich, fertile, and productive, emi- 

 nently suited to breeding superior fancy horses. But 

 they were poorly raised therein ; the farmers disdained 

 rearing horses suited to the soil, and the horses they did 

 breed, already bad from the very start, were raised in idle- 

 ness, and poorly fed, on account of their earning nothing. 

 The other district was poor, and the soil produced only 

 what could be wrested from it by force. However, by 

 dint of labor, agriculture nourished. The horse, chosen with 

 care, suited the country, worked well, and all prospered. 



The fancy struck me, to compare the settlements of 

 estates in these two districts, and here are the results of 

 this examination : 



In the first district, the breeders all commenced and en- 

 tered upon their career with capital. Notwithstanding 

 this, 18 out of 20 died over head and ears in debt. 



In the second, they were almost all former servants or 

 farm hands, possessing only their savings, with which to 

 establish themselves. In spite of these difficult begin- 

 nings, 17 out of 20 left fortunes to their children, who, the 

 reverse of the children of the former, were early accustom- 

 ed to labor and to a regular life. It is useless to say that 

 in these examples I always excepted the cases where 



