12 FOREIGN MARKETS FOR AMERICAN HORSES. 



marks. A well-bred, low, short, thick-set horse, with strong flanks, 

 good high tail, buttocks full and square, ribs rounded out so as to 

 "furnish" well, well-shaped legs with plenty of bone, and good feet, 

 is about the thing desired. Most of the German cavalry horses are 

 bought in eastern Prussia, where horse breeding flourishes, and the 

 breed is generally known as Trakehnen. This breed originated from 

 native mares crossed with Russian horses. In the course of this 

 century, and especially for the past twenty-five years, top crossing 

 with English thoroughbred stallions has been practiced, and the race 

 has been much improved both as to speed and endurance, and pro- 

 duces excellent cavalry horses. 



France has tried many kinds of horses for her army — Arabian, South 

 American, and Spanish — but most of her remounts for light cavalry 

 come from southern France, where the horses are a cross from Span- 

 ish Arabian (probably barb) stallions upon the native stock. As a 

 large number of the 9,017 stallions used in France in the season of 

 1897 were thoroughbreds and over one-third at least half English 

 thoroughbred, Anglo-Arabian, or Arabian, there is no lack of mate- 

 rial for first-class horses for the heavy cavalry, dragoons, cuirassiers, 

 etc., and to compete successfully in that market none but the best 

 horses need be entered. 



Doubtless, numbers of American horses do find their way into the 

 French and German armies, ofttimes perhaps under the name of 

 English or Irish, their naturalization being completed during the few 

 days elapsing between their trans- Atlantic journey and reembarking 

 for the trip across the channel. 



Prices vary, $180 to $260 being received for suitable horses in 

 France, while in Germany the price depends on the government to 

 which the horse is sold, $210 being paid in Prussia (i. e., the total 

 price paid for all horses purchased for the Prussian army divided by 

 the number purchased must give a quotient not greater than 830 

 marks), and $290 in Bavaria. 



Denmark remounts her cavalry with horses principally drawn from 

 Germany and England, but uses native horses entirely for artillery 

 and baggage trains, her purchases, however, being trifling in number. 



In Belgium a few dealers furnish the small number of horses 

 required, and those for the cavalry are usually recruited in Ireland 

 (misfit hunters), and as the business as now conducted has proved 

 profitable (about $60 net profit on each horse) there is not likely to 

 be much of a demand from them for American-grown stock. The 

 artillery horses are supplied from among the home-grown horses. 



Some American horses are in the English artillery service, but none 

 in the cavalry. It requires about 2,000 horses annually to remount 

 the English cavalry, etc., and from 4 to 5 per cent (80 to 100) of these 

 are Canadian. The principal fault found by the inspector of re- 

 mounts of England with American-raised horses is with their shape— 



