CONCLUSION'. 



EvEEYBODY complains now-a-days of the degeneration 

 of our breeds of horses. Apprehensive too late of a 

 state of things which threatens even the national inde- 

 pendence,* patriotic spirits are seeking to go back to the 

 source of the evil, and are arranging divers systems for 

 remedying it as soon as possible. Among the causes 

 which have contributed the most to the loss of our old 

 breeds, they forget, it seems to me, to mention the 

 decline of horsemanship, nor do they consider that the 

 revival of this art is indispensable in bringing about the 

 regeneration of the horse. 



The difficulties of horsemanship have long been the 

 same, but formerly constant practice, if not taste, kept 

 it up ; these stimulants exist no longer. Fifty years 

 ago, every man of rank was expected to be able to handle 

 a horse with skill, and break one if necessary. This 

 study was an indispensable part of the education of 

 young people of family; and as. it obliged them to 

 devote two or three years to the rough exercises of the 

 manegej in the end they all became horsemen, some by 

 taste, the rest by habit. These habits once acquired 

 were preserved throughout life ; they then felt the 

 necessity of possessing good horses, and men of fortune 

 spared nothing in getting them. The sale of fine horses 

 thus became easy ; all gained by it, the breeder as well 

 as the horse. It is not so now ; the aristocracy of 



* Much in this chapter, though written for France, applies with great 

 appropriateness to our own country. 



