such as Arabia, Persia, and Northern India, as described by- 

 Colonel Hallen, we find the native races small, wiry and active ; 

 and, again, in cold regions we find the smallest and most 

 stunted horses. 



Only within certain limits, to be ascertained by years of 

 costly experiment, can we hope by cross-breeding to override 

 the natural laws which determine the size of the horse of any 

 country without materially impairing its valuable qualities, if 

 we can succeed in doing so at all. In India, the old Stud 

 Department, for various reasons, failed to establish an improved 

 breed of horses in the eighty years of its existence ; it would be 

 unreasonable to expect that the reorganised Horse-Breeding 

 Department should have accomplished the task during the 

 twenty and odd years it has been at work. 



OPINIONS OF MAJOR-GENERAL SIR JOHN WATSON. K.C.B. 



General Sir John ^^'atson, who has been good enough to 

 read the foregoing pages, favours me with his views on the 

 subject of Horse-Breeding in India. As the outcome of long 

 experience in that country, Sir John's remarks carry great 

 weight. 



He points out that the old Bengal studs, which were 

 abolished in 1876, supplied both cavalry and artillery with a 

 remarkably fine class of stud-bred Remount for many years. 

 Deterioration and infertility followed upon the continued use of 

 English sires of different classes. 



The "Diffused System" was then introduced. As 

 described in the preceding pages, the gist of this scheme was 

 the distribution over the horse breeding areas of Northern India 

 of a large number of English Thoroughbred, Hackney and Arab 

 Stallions, which give gratuitous service to approved mares. 

 Sir John Watson is entirely at variance with the authorities 

 who adopted this " Diffused System." The operations of the 

 Horse-Breeding Department as now constituted are, he points 



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