that the natives in charge of these stallions cannot be depended 

 on to refuse service to unbranded mares if a trifling present be 

 offered by the owners of such mares. Further, when there are 

 two staUions at a local covering station it usually happens that 

 the native owners of mares give their preference to one to the 

 ■exclusion of the other ; whereby the favourite does all the work, 

 even being brought out several times in the same day Hence 

 the popular stallions are liable to be overworked, and serve 

 many mares which are of a stamp not at all likely to throw 

 good foals. 



Owing to these difficulties and errors of policy the 

 establishment of a native breed, the work of many years under 

 the most favourable conditions, has never been seriously 

 attempted, and the production of Remounts for immediate 

 use has been made the objective of the Horse-Breeding 

 Department. It was impossible that its work under these 

 ■circumstances should have succeeded as it would have done 

 had those in control been able to ignore the question of an 

 immediate supply of Remounts. Horse-breeding, it may be 

 suggested, is essentially an agricultural business, and therefore 

 one to be undertaken by a civil department ; the business of 

 procuring Remounts for troops, on the other hand, is essentially 

 a soldier's task. The error lay in the attempt to combine the 

 two. 



Of the Arab sire Colonel Hallen considered his small size 

 is the only point in his disfavour. It had been Colonel Hallen's 

 hope to gradually grade up with the Hackney and Trotter cross 

 large-boned and sizeable mares ; and he looked to these to throw 

 to Arab sires animals of the right stamp for the Remount 

 Department. 



It must not be forgotten that climate and the prevailing 

 normal conditions of life are paramount in determining what 

 the size and character of the horse of any given country shall 

 be. In temperate climes, with good feed, horses of great size 

 can be produced and depended on to maintain their size. In 

 very hot, dry countries, which offer comparatively poor feed, 



59 



