21 



Before leaving this question of the thorough- 

 bred, I would remark that it is to be hoped the 

 valuable premiums offered by the Hunters' Improve- 

 ment Society for Thoroughbred Stallions, at their 

 first show which opens to-morrow [3rd March, 1885] 

 at the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, will intro- 

 duce to breeders animals well adapted for getting 

 useful half-bred horses. Such a system claims for 

 itself all the advantages which Lord Calthorpe 

 advocated in a letter to the Times in 1875, in which 

 he recommended the provision of stud horses by 

 private subscription rather than by Government 

 aid. 



The owners of thoroughbred stallions winning 

 any of the premiums at the Show of the Hunters' 

 Improvement Society to-morrow are required to 

 guarantee twenty subscriptions for serving tenant 

 farmers' mares at a fee not exceeding £2 los. 



So far as the size of thoroughbred horses is 

 ■concerned we have some curious statistics. Admiral 

 Rous stated fifteen years ago, in Baily s Magazine, 

 that the stature of race-horses had increased an inch 

 in every twenty-five years since 1 700, and that 

 whereas the average size of horses then was 1 3 hands 

 2 in., the average in 1870 was 15 hands 2 in. 



If we cross the Atlantic we shall find that all 

 the fastest trotters in the United States descend 

 from the English Thoroughbreds. " Imported 

 Messenger," the son of " Mambrino," bred by Lord 

 ■Grosvenor, was exported to America towards the 



