38 USELESSNESS OF CL YDESDALE SIRES 



breeding", and I have often known cases in which, 

 for the sake of some trifling expense or trouble, a 

 mare has been sent to the neighbouring stalh'on 

 without the slightest regard to his being a suitable 

 mate for her or not. Farmers nowadays seem unable 

 to produce anything better than a light-weight weed, 

 which may be fit only to win at some small hunt- 

 meeting, and very often the produce is of an even 

 more worthless stamp, such as the Clydesdale foal 

 to which I have above referred. Such sires should 

 never have been introduced into the hunter-breeding 

 counties of England and Ireland. They are of no use 

 to anyone, not even to the farmer. In Scotland there 

 is a great demand for them, and there alone can such 

 a class of horse pay to breed. 



If the farmers in the grass-countries were to turn 

 their attention to the breeding of hunters, and would 

 take the trouble to acquire the knowledge necessary to 

 carry it out properly, they would find it pay them as 

 well as, and better than, anything else, and they would 

 very soon reap the reward of their trouble by obtain- 

 ing long prices for good hunters ; and those horses 

 which fail to come up to their expectations, as being 

 likely to make first-class hunters or steeplechasers of 

 weight-carrying value, would at all events fetch a fair 

 price elsewhere, or as remounts, etc. 



In selectino- a brood-mare for hunters the followino- 

 points should be looked for : Her height should be 

 from 14.3 to 1 5.3, and she should be about seven-eighths 

 bred, with plenty of bone. Her head should be well 

 put on, and her jowl well formed and roomy ; shoulders 

 fine and sloping, not loaded ; knees well made ; legs 

 short and flat, and the sinews so well and cleanly 



