86 HORSE-BREEDING FOR FARMERS CHAP. 
find a Queen’s Premium horse in Yorkshire. I 
have never yet had a Queen’s Premium within reach 
of me but once, and that was Pursebearer, who 
stood some twenty miles away. I think 410,000, 
instead of £5000, might be wisely devoted to the 
Thoroughbred prizes, and another £10,000 to Shire, 
Clydesdale, Cleveland, coach horse, and hackney. 
Prizes of £200 are necessary perhaps to bring out the 
better class of Thoroughbreds, and I am inclined to 
think the reduction to £150 lately made, a mistake, 
but prizes of 450 would do much to encourage the 
travelling of good, sound sires among these and 
other breeds. It would not be a ruinous sum for a 
country like England to give in prizes to encourage 
native breeds of horses. We spend thousands for the 
encouragement of art, literature, science, and technical 
instruction ; and surely horse-breeding is not only 
an industry—it is also a science, and, when thoroughly 
carried on, is productive of the useful and beautiful. 
Why I place so much store by these honours is that 
they evoke public interest and secure at least a few 
sound sires for use at a reasonable fee. It would be 
a great advantage if the Board of Agriculture would 
issue certificates of soundness to owners of stallions 
at a nominal charge, so that every stallion-owner 
might have the opportunity of having one, leaving 
the public to judge of those that were without. Prob- 
ably we cannot yet go to the length to which the 
French Government has gone, of penalising the 
travelling or use, for anything but his owner's own 
mares, of a stallion that is unsound in certain 
particulars. 
In considering the selection of the Thoroughbred 
