REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 157 



This knowledge is gained by large markets and by the advantage 

 thus afforded of observation and comparison. In this way it is, 

 that breeders who bring their products to a mart like this learn 

 to measTire the extent of their own deficiencies by seeing the 

 excellences of others; each finds something to learn from those 

 who are engaged in the same occupation, and but few will return 

 to their homes without having acquired some new hints and 

 ideas, which will appear afterwards in an improved class of 

 animals at the market. Thus, these markets become a practical 

 school of instruction, and result in the improvement of the race 

 of horses generally, whether bred for one purpose or another. 



One very important point of view for the interest of the 

 breeder, we wish to suggest, which is, that the establishment of 

 a regular market day like the one proposed, will enable those 

 who undertake this branch of agricultural industry, to breed 

 with a certainty as to a market and with less of a lottery than 

 it now is, as to price. The effect of an open, large and fixed 

 market, as is proposed in this case, would be to bring together a 

 large concourse of those who wish to buy and those who wish 

 to sell. They stand upon a neutral ground. It is not a seller 

 going to seek a purchaser or a purchaser going to seek a seller ; 

 but they meet there fairly and openly for the purpose of a 

 bargain. Now it is well known that such methods of transact- 

 ing business, whether of horses or of any thing else, tends to 

 establish a general tone or rate as to prices, — an average, 

 which is necessarily a fair one. If a breeder or seller has in 

 the opinion of a purchaser pitched his expectations too high, 

 the purchaser looks around for some one who is more moderate 

 in his views, and if he finds none, it satisfies him that he has 

 been wrong in his calculations ; so if a seller finds he is asking 

 too much, because the purchaser does not come back to him, 

 he discovers his error and comes down in his price. A sale in 

 this way at a market price is made, and a market price is almost 

 always satisfactory. As it^ is now, there is no approach to a 

 market price and every man is accustomed to ask twice what he 

 hopes to get for any animal that he offers. 



There is another advantage in these markets which ought not 

 to pass unnoticed. The seller and the buyer for his own wants, 

 are more nearly brought together and a vast saving is effected 

 to both by doing away with the intermediate half a dozen 



