90 STRUCTUKE AND ECONOMY OF THE HORSE. 



The Arabs of the desert, we are told, prize their mares in- 

 finitely beyond their horses, and while they part from the latter 

 freely, yet nothing can induce them to give up their favourite 

 mares. To this scrupulous attention to the female is doubtless 

 chiefly owing the fact of their preserving their race of horses 

 free from degeneracy, and in such great perfection for so many 

 years. While they preserve good mares they cannot have bad 

 horses; whereas, had they allowed degeneracy to creep in amongst 

 their mares, the qualities of their horses could not have supplied 

 the deficiency. 



It is a question, however, whether they would not have im- 

 proved their race of horses still more, if they had bestowed more 

 of that scrupulous attention on the sire which they pay so ex- 

 clusively to the dam. And although, from the impossibility of 

 getting the choicest Arab mares, we cannot reduce their powers 

 to a fair comparison with our own, yet, from tlie great ease with 

 which our second-rate horses have beaten the Arabs, some of them 

 perhaps the own brothers of their favourite mares, I am inclined 

 to think that if even their choicest mares were entered for those 

 of our stakes confined to the feminine sex alone, we should find 

 that the pride of the desert would be unable to wrest the laurels 

 from our " Crucifixes'''' or "Black Besses,''^ and that the winner of 

 the Oaks would still remain of English blood. 



Breeding horses is generally considered an unprofitable branch 

 of a farmer's business, but this, I take it, is in great measure 

 owing to the want of judgment displayed; for, certainly, keep- 

 ing an animal till he is four or five years old, taking all the 

 risks to which young stock are exposed, and then realising a 

 price ranging between 20/. and 30/., will most assuredly leave a 

 balance on the unfavourable side of the profit and loss account. 

 I am here not alludino; to those larg;e breeders who make it their 

 principal business, having extensive pastures applicable for no 

 other purpose, but to those agriculturists who cannot keep 

 their colts for less than three or four shillings per week. To 

 this description of farmers breeding cart horses is more profitable 

 than hacks, as the colts come into work at two and three years 

 old, and thus earn their keep at this early age, and if they are 

 large and promising often realise high prices by the time they 

 are five years old. Although more judgment has been displayed 

 in this stock than in that of a better breed, yet there is still much 

 room for judicious improvement. By using a horse as a stallion 

 better bred than those generally used, many advantages are se- 

 cured, without any proportionate drawbacks. 



The advantages are, by slightly reducing tlie weight we gain 

 an improvement in the action, so much so that a pace of four 

 miles an hour will be easier executed than three miles an hour 

 by the heavier horse. By getting more breed a greater degree 



