THE STUD FARM. 303 



ties are discovered. Perhaps some part of what I say above 

 will be more clear to you if I say, that I hold to the opinion 

 that the Percheron blood still exists in Canada in all its purity. 

 " You will think, perhaps, that I have said quite enough 

 about my humble hobby, and you will have found out too, that 

 I have no idea, contrary to your good-natured warning, of mak- 

 ing ' swans of my geese.' AVhat I should like to see would be 

 further importations of these horses, thereby multiplying the 

 chances for a happy hit in crossing, and to draw public atten- 

 tion to them, which would do more for them than writing till 

 doomsday. So far from considering these horses as caj)able by 

 any crossing of producing the very best of horses for all pur- 

 poses, that is to say, the best horse-of- all-work, I believe that if 

 I had my time to live over again, had a very large landed estate, 

 an unlimited supply of ' the dust^ I could produce that horse 

 by breeding from the thoroughbred English racer. It would 

 not be difficult now to select, to start from, stallions and mares 

 possessing all the requisites of size, form, temper, &c. ; but each 

 of these individuals is such a compound of all kinds of ances- 

 tors, good, bad, and indifferent, that you would be obliged from- 

 their progeny to select and reject so often, for fjiults of size and 

 form, and for blemishes and vices, that your allotted days would 

 be near a close before you produced any thing like uniformity 

 in the breed. Still, we see what has been done by Bake well 

 and others in breeding stock ; therefore I contend, a la Sam 

 Patch, that what has been done may be done again. 



"I therefore am decidedly of opinion, that we cannot do 

 better, if we wish to produce in any reasonable time a most in- 

 valuable race of horses for the farm and the road, than to breed 

 from the full-sized Korman oi- Percheron horse. 

 " I remain, yours very sincerely, 



" Edward Harris." 



THE STUD FARM. 



Tlie necessity for a farm, with all the buildings suitable to a 

 breeding stud of race-horses, is self-evident, inasmuch as the 

 mares and colts of that valuable nature, and also of such in- 

 tractable dispositions, that ordinary accommodation would be 



