52 A HISTORY OP THE PERCHEEON HORSE 



with a view towards furnishing horses suitable for 

 military purposes. In strong opposition to this, how- 

 ever, we find the farmers themselves, the mare men 

 of The Perche, who were best able to judge for them- 

 selves what kind of a horse was best adapted for 

 their own service. They preferred a heavier type, 

 and, as we shall show in another chapter, the founda- 

 tions of the modern heavy-draft Percheron had been 

 firmly laid by the use of government-approved stal- 

 lions, mostly of gray color and in many cases stand- 

 ing 16 hands and over in height, upwards of 25 years 

 prior to the holding of this congress. 



Is the Percheron a Primitive Type? — We draw 

 special attention to M. Gautier's expression of his 

 belief that the Percheron was in reality a primitive 

 breed, from time to time crossed with other types. 

 We do this for the purpose of introducing at this 

 point the testimony of M. Andre Sanson, late Pro- 

 fessor of Zoologie at the National School of Agri- 

 culture, Grignon, France, and at the National Insti- 

 tute of Agronomy, Paris. In his book, "L'Origine 

 des races Francaises de chevaux," page 95, Vol. 3, 

 he says : 



"The Percheron breed, like all the others, is con- 

 temporaneous with the mammoth of the alluvial. It 

 goes back to the Deluge, and, in the presence of such 

 antiquity, the epoch of the Crusades, by comparison, 

 only dates from yesterday. 



"The Percheron . . . had its origin in the 

 basin of the Seine, and that is the reason why we 

 give to this type the scientific name of Sequanien, 



