PERCHEEON PROTOTYPES 35 



their good horses, modifying the type from time to 

 time to meet changing conditions. From the earliest 

 times The Perche farmer has been a producer of 

 horses, and not often a buyer from elsewhere. The 

 whole temper of The Perche people is opposed 

 to the miscellaneous introduction of material from 

 the outside. They were a little world unto them- 

 selves in this matter of their horses, and relied 

 mainly upon their own ability to mold the type from 

 within the limits of their own country as new de- 

 mands were made. They were always free sellers of 

 colts and horses to the adjacent provinces and central 

 cities. The usual movement was from within out- 

 ward, and not from the outside into the district. An 

 understanding of this fact is of fundamental im- 

 portance in attempting to grasp the reasons for the 

 Percheron's latter-day popularity. It establishes a 

 basis for his prepotency in crossing upon mares of 

 mixed breeding, such as were commonly found in the 

 adjacent provinces of France and especially such as 

 were in use in the United States at the time the great 

 extension of Percheron breeding in Anaerica began. 

 Some of the Fairy Tales. — Almost every possible 

 equine ancestry has been suggested to explain the 

 existence of the Percheron horse. For a long time 

 — and even to this day one may find this explanation 

 given in encyclopedias and other books of general 

 information — it was maintained that the Percheron 

 was a descendant of the Brittany draft horse. Some 

 writers have gone so far as to advance the theory 

 that the Percheron is of English ancestry; others 



