18 FOREIGN MARKETS FOR AMERICAN HORSES. 



those attending the regular sales. Our draft horses are to-day of great value, 

 due to an intelligent selection. Our indigenous race is the most ancient, the best 

 traced, the type and characteristics of which are most faithfully reproduced. A 

 few farmers have bought at Antwerp draft mares sired by stallions imported into 

 America, belonging to Percheron, Boullonnais, Shire, and Clydesdale races. The 

 mares have to our knowledge been presented to Belgian stallions, and the cross- 

 ing thus obtained has been sold as indigenous, to the great injury of the reputation 

 and purity of our race. 



Moved by this condition of affairs, affecting the only prosperous branch of agri- 

 culture, all the Belgian societies having at heart the question of horse breeding 

 have united to combat the danger, and by the most authorized means have agreed 

 to make their conclusions unanimously predominate. The Federation Nationale 

 de l'Elevage du Cheval en Belgique (National Association for Horse Breeding in 

 Belgium) , which took the initiative in this campaign, the Societe Centrale d' Agri- 

 culture (Central Agricultural Society), the Societe Nationale des Eleveurs Beiges 

 (National Society of Belgian Breeders), and the Societe Royale Hippique (Royal 

 Equestrian Society) have made application to the minister of agriculture that he 

 will, without delay, confide to the delegates chosen by the societies the official 

 mission to make a study in the United States and Canada, so as to acquire a full 

 knowledge as to the equine population in the two countries and to make it the 

 object of a detailed report. At the same time there will be made in Belgium and 

 other foreign countries— that is to say, in centers of demand, as well as in breed- 

 ing localities — investigations to make known the situation and to find new markets 

 for our equine production. Thus the Government will be able by the spring of 

 1898 to take such measures as the protection and interests of breeding may 

 dictate. 



The following clipping from the Hamburgischer Correspondent, a 

 German paper, indicates a line of attack upon our horse similar to 

 that made upon the other agricultural products of the United States 

 which come in competition with German agrarian productions : 



IMPORTATION OF HORSES INTO GERMANY. 



Halle, February 4., 1898. 



Public economy councillor Dr. von Mendel-Steinfels, reports the importation 

 of horses to be a serious matter, and that the number brought from Russia is 

 annually 30,000, while from Denmark, Holland, France, Belgium, and other 

 countries it is 46,000. 



But the most dangerous importations are from America, inasmuch as there the 

 worst veterinary managemeut imaginable exists. There is therefore great risk 

 of importing disease through this American importation, and it is with the 

 greatest satisfaction that the Government has been found ready to take stringent 

 measures for limiting this evil and has given assurance that most especial watch- 

 ful care will be given to this matter. 



This importing of animals has serious meaning, not only in the direction of. 

 prices upon our markets, but also in the danger of admitting diseases, and it is of 

 most pressing importance that measures for the regulation of this trade be estab- 

 lished immediately. 



To this end it will be necessary to extend the quarantine at Hamburg to four 

 weeks. 



That the American horse breeders have for years been importing 

 the finest individual animals of the best breeds from the most perfect 

 European races is clearly proven by the studbooks of the old country, 



