46 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



certainly it is not because our own breeds are without 

 value ; they are, on the contrary, possessed of natural 

 merits, which art alone has communicated to the English 

 horses. The truth is, that production with us is never 

 below consumption ; but what is needed for the improve- 

 ment of our breeds is, that we learn to pay a price for 

 good horses. This is the great secret. Nothing is more 

 expensive to produce than a good horse. As long as our 

 first object is cheapness, handsome and good horses will 

 be the exceptions with us, although it would be an 

 easy matter to multiply them. Our Percherons, our 

 Boulonnais, our Limousins, Bretons, and B&irnais, afford 

 already excellent types, which might be easily spread and 

 improved if our breeders could obtain sufficient remune- 

 ration for their trouble. 



English pigs, on an average, are not larger than ours, 

 but they are much more numerous, and are killed younger 

 exemplifying always the great principle of precocity, 

 contended for by Bakewell, and applied to all kinds of ani- 

 mals destined for food. England alone feeds as many 

 pigs as the whole of France ; those of Scotland and Ireland 

 are over and above, and very few of these animals are kept 

 alive beyond a year. They are all of breeds which fat- 

 ten rapidly, and whose shapes have been improved for 

 a lengthened period. Official statistics make the annual 

 production of pork in France two hundred and ninety 

 millions of kilogrammes. This figure must be much 

 under the real amount, a great many of these useful 

 animals being killed and consumed in country house- 

 holds, without any account of them being taken ; but 

 even extending it to four hundred millions, the United 

 Kingdom produces double : a superiority, again, which 

 causes no surprise to any one who has witnessed with 

 what ability the piggeries of our neighbours are con- 



