THE BREEDS OF HORSES. 281 



horses here. We don't have any such horses. You can see 

 plenty of Normans in Paris; they are small horses, mostly 

 bays, and are used in the cabs and carriages. They are 

 generally half-bloods, got by English thoroughbred sires, 

 and some of them are out of Percheron dams, and they are 

 usually called Anglo-Normans." 



The same statements, substantially, in regard to purity of 

 race and the name, were obtained from all the breeders in- 

 terviewed, notably Auguste Tacheau (Province of Sarthe), 

 Pierre Sagot (Province of Eure et Loir) and Celestin Caget 

 (Province of Orne). In fact, so far as I could learn, it was 

 almost an insult to ask one of the breeders present if he bred 

 or sold any other than Percheron horses, and they spurned 

 the term "Norman" with contempt. * * * It was an 

 agreeable surprise to me to learn that so much pains has 

 been taken by these Percheron breeders to preserve the 

 purity of the race. I had often heard it asserted, even by 

 some importers, that nobody knew anything about it; that 

 the Percherons were mongrels, and that no man in France 

 could give the pedigree of his horse. I found, on the con- 

 trary, that, while they have not paid much attention to pre- 

 serving the maternal genealogy, many of the sires can easily 

 be traced six or eight generations. 



Many draft horses have been imported from 

 France to the United States, and most of them 

 have been of the Percheron breed; but owing 

 to the fact that nearly all of our early import- 

 ers were ignorant of the French language very 

 few of them were able to obtain much infor- 

 mation concerning the French breeds or the 

 methods of breeding prevailing in that country; 

 and they were largely at the mercy of the horse 

 dealers of Paris, Havre, Rouen, Dieppe and 

 other cities. Consequently very indefinite, and, 

 in many cases, positively erroneous ideas were 



