148 LIGHT HORSES : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



raising of ponies the most profitable of all stock should 

 have been so completely discountenanced. 



A short time ago the first volume of a Pony Stud Book 

 was published, and before this volume has appeared there 

 will probably be issued the initial volume of the Stud Book 

 of the Polo Pony Stud Book Society. The future success 

 of these registers will, of course, depend upon the methods in 

 which they are conducted. A few breeders have for years past 

 religiously preserved a record of their breeding operations, 

 and were these pedigree books forthcoming, the basis of a 

 Stud Book might be obtained. Under the happiest of cir- 

 cumstances, however, the formation of public records of the 

 pedigrees of ponies, like the establishment of a reliable strain, 

 must be regarded as a matter of time, patience and infinite 

 research, for there can be no overlooking the fact that many of 

 those who have bred the best of ponies have only succeeded 

 by a fluke, and know next to nothing of the breeding of the 

 animal which has made them famous. All this is far from 

 being right, and it is therefore to be hoped that the future for 

 British ponies animals which can scarcely be put in wrong 

 places if so be that their inches will not stand in the way 

 will be a brighter one than the past. At all events there is 

 the satisfaction of knowing that a move is being made, and 

 that .the merits of the bantams have been clearly laid before 

 the public. It will now be the fault of breeders and cer- 

 tainly not of the ponies if a perceptible improvement in the 

 general quality of the latter is not evident before many years 

 have passed over our heads. All that is necessary to ensure 

 this is the devotion of patience and time to the improvement 

 of a judiciously selected stud, by a man who has enough money 

 to enable him to wait a few years. If these are forthcoming, 

 and proper attention is devoted to the four cardinal rules of 

 breeding alluded to above, there is little doubt as to the 

 result. 



There is a very considerable difficulty in existence now-a- 

 days, in distinguishing one breed of pony from another, so far 



