CHAP. III AGRICULTURAL HORSES 35 
result, in that it zezds towards the best horses being 
kept for sires ; and that, as far as horse-breeding is 
concerned, it would not be a bad thing if many more 
were cut which now travel the country, spreading 
hereditary disease, begetting weeds, and doing much 
to discourage those horse-breeders who have had the 
folly or the innocence to use them. 
Granted that the average gelding is larger and 
stronger than the average mare, I would respectfully 
maintain that he has not as a rule stamina, courage, 
and wear-and-tear qualities to an equal extent with 
the mare, which has not undergone, as he has, that 
mutilating process which must emasculate him as it 
does every animal upon which it is performed. Not 
only will the average mare wear longer than the 
average gelding, but she will earn her keep equally 
well, and present her owner, if she is carefully 
attended to at the right time, with a foal almost 
every year; and she will do this with very little 
deterioration of her power for continual work, as I 
shall try to show later on. Again, the cart horse 
may have an accident that makes him valueless ex- 
cept for the price of his hide and what the M.F.H. 
will give for his carcass at the kennels. A good 
mare, however, in a similar case may prove as 
valuable at the stud as she did in the shafts, and 
will at least be worth keeping where there is hope of 
recovery, if she can bring up a foal or two meanwhile? 
And yet again, a mare that is a good breeder when 
partially and not totally incapacitated for work will 
be worth keeping, for she will be handy for odd jobs 
and relieve other draughts when the farmer could 
1 Vide Estimates of Breeding from Working and Idle Mares, pp. 102-111 
