184 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



breeding such stock does not answer, because tLej are 

 bred without any rule at all. In these days, if a tenant 

 wishes to rear a good beast, he takes especial care to 

 secure the services of a good bull, as with the same ambi- 

 tion he will bid up for a Cotswold shearling, or a South- 

 down ram. If moreover, he really means to succeed, he 

 will be almost as scrupulous in selecting a dam, and, thus 

 provided, he gives the principle he is testing a fair trial. 

 Jiut take the case of rearing a riding-horse, and how does 

 the self-same man proceed ? In nine times in ten ^^ just 

 anyhow." He puts anything he may happen to have 

 with anything that may happen to come in the way. As 

 often as not he scarcely looks at the horse he uses, but 

 takes the word of some roving blacksmith, or broken-down 

 soper who travels the country with an animal " best cal- 

 culated to perpetuate the breed" of weeds and screws. 

 Then the foal, when he does come, is cultivated much 

 after the same fashion, or, that is, left pretty much to 

 shift for himself. You will see him fio'litino- for hlg own 

 in the farmyard amongst a lot of store bullocks, as likely 

 as not with a hip down, or a hole in his side from the 

 thrust of a playful Hereford, and doing as well as he can 

 on that grand specific, a due allowance of bean-straw. 

 The result of this wonderful system is surely logical enough. 

 At a year old the young nag is a half-starved, sulky- 

 headed, big-bellied, narrow-framed thing, with moBfc 

 probably a blemish or an eyesore of some sort to complete 

 his personal experience, and with a general expression and 

 carriage as lively as that of Rosinante, or Dr. Syntax's 

 Dapple. Very naturally the breeder of such a prodigy 

 is more than anxious to sell him, but quite as naturally 

 <^an find nobody ^yilIing to buy him ; until, without heart, 

 mouth, or action — under-bred, under-fed, and half-broke 



