84 HORSE-BREEDING FOR FARMERS CHAP. 
paying their fees. There is many an owner who 
would travel a good horse for the benefit of the 
public, without expecting to make money, if he saw 
his way to covering expenses, and was saved the 
bother and trouble he usually experiences in getting 
his money in. Many owners would be glad to take 
30 per cent off the fee to be paid cash down, the first 
service. 
We have previously noticed the type of horse a 
farmer should select for his cart mare in order to 
breed agricultural horses, and the characteristics that 
should distinguish the hackney and the Yorkshire bay. 
Let us now turn to the Thoroughbred sire, the hunter 
sire, and the Cleveland bay sire. The Thoroughbred 
stallion may be said to be ubiquitous. Good, 
moderate, and bad specimens are to be found in 
almost every district. The Queen’s Premium horses 
are far too few, and I think that more might be 
done at headquarters to promote the great horse- 
breeding industry of this country. I have alluded 
to foreign competition, but I am too much of a 
convinced free-trader to think that it would be wise 
or expedient to protect the horse-breeder by any 
tariff regulations, even when we have to compete 
with foreign breeders who are supported by enormous 
State subsidies of hundreds of thousands of pounds 
a year, and who have the finest stallions placed at 
their service at a nominal fee or no fee at all. I 
have lately inspected the French Government 
stallions in Algeria, and at Blidah I saw eighty or 
more that have been serving gratis in various districts 
of the country. Many of these horses are fine 
animals, well calculated to get the horses required for 
