great breeders ; but the blunders of the India Remount Committee 

 and the speculators forstalled this very plausable idea and increased 

 the calamities that were undermining this branch of our pastoral 

 farming. 



This lack of trading enterprise is justly condemned. Too often 

 is the average South African farmer contented to get rid of his pro- 

 duce — wool, feathers, slaughter cattle, horses, fruit, etc, to a middle 

 man at much inferior prices. One reason is, perhaps, that he is too 

 rich or at least considers himself so, and he does not make the least 

 exertion to get the best prices for his goods ; this was particularly 

 the case in pre-war days. After the war, matters had in many 

 cases to be altogether reorganized and the want that was caused by 

 the war has placed many enterprises on a surer and more business - 

 like footing. 



Besides the above mentioned causes there were others that were 

 as strong and at that time probably less controlable by man than the 

 blunders and prejudices of the Indian authorities and the mistakes 

 of bad selection of stallions and mismanagement on the part of the 

 farmers. 



Since the year 1854 the periodic visitations of horse sickness 

 seems to have increased in severity; for during that year and the 

 following over 65,000 horses and mules out of 169,583 were swept 

 away.^^ In 1870 in the midst of all the difficulties of the Indian 

 trade another 70,000 were carried off ; and so these periodic visi^ 

 tations claimed its heavy toll from time to time, making another 

 great sweep in 1891-3, of over 100,000 horses and mules, or almost 

 1/5 of the total number of horses and mules which is given as 

 540,492. With misfortunes like these it is no wonder that horse- 

 breeding was carried on in a listless manner ; still with better meth- 

 ods of feeding and shelter much of the disease 's severity could have 

 been avoided. Further details on this side of the question will be 

 discussed in another chapter. 



In the meantime other occupations in the pastoral farming 

 have been coming up rapidly, and when these series of mishaps and 

 drawbacks occurred in one branch, all attention was given to these 

 new industries which gave good returns and were fast becoming a 

 very safe and lucrative investment. Many of the great horse breed- 

 ers think that the deterioration of the Cape horse is solely due to 



(88) Statistics for the year 1854. 



(89) Statistics for the year 1891. 



47 



