36 HORSE-BREEDING FOR FARMERS CHAP. 
not easily afford to buy or keep a horse to fill such a 
place alone. To every farmer who can afford to keep 
two draughts of horses for the farm, I would say, have 
one draught at least of mares. In foal or not, they 
will earn their living, work the year through, and 
need little care beyond that given to the horses, save 
when in foal, to keep them out of severe shaft work 
in the spring for a few weeks before foaling. For all 
spring work on the land, in the plough, the harrows, 
leading in the team, and short journeys in the carts 
on level ground, they can be used right up to within 
an hour or two of foaling, and many a mare in my 
own neighbourhood has come in from the plough at 
dinner-time, foaled, and within a short period been 
between the cords again. The mare can return to 
her ordinary work within two or three weeks of 
foaling. 
Generally speaking, then, the farmer, in choosing 
his brood mare, should see that she is qualified at 
least for the work of half a plough. Naturally the 
man with a small holding who can only keep, say 
two, three, or four horses at most, will choose his 
mares from purely agricultural breeds. Perhaps the 
natural course in his case will be the wisest ; he may 
miss the chief prizes and best things that horse- 
breeding offers, but he will be following a safe and 
sure road to a certain, if sometimes only a small 
profit. So much success depends on the turn of a 
man’s fancy and his taste, that it is as impossible here, 
as in other things, to point out a clearly-defined road 
or a royal way to certain success. That man will 
probably succeed best who follows his natural bent 
and applies himself to produce the animal in which 
