Horse Breeding in Italy. 



225 



is the Government, which requires a supply for military 

 remounts. But the Government expects four-year-old horses 

 at ^25 to £^Oy a price which does not cover the cost of pro - 

 duction. By the time the mare has been kept one year, and 

 the colt four, there cannot be any margin of profit, even 

 when, as is always the case in Italy, the horses are bred on 

 waste lands, such as the marshy plains of the Maremma and 

 the Roman Campagna. Within the last few years some of 

 the large Italian land-owners have imported English and 

 Irish brood mares, with the intention of crossing them with 

 the thoroughbred Government stallions, and breeding good 

 cavalry horses. In order, however, to make such breeding 

 profitable, an average of £60 a colt is required — a price 

 which the Government will not give, and which is not easy 

 to obtain, even for officers' chargers. 



The horses bred in the Maremma and Pontine marshes are 

 a very good type of troop-horse. They are sturdy and very 

 hardy ; indeed, it is said that in the Crimeari war they bore 

 cold and privation better than any other horses engaged in 

 the campaign. 



Italy is eminently a cultivated country, and horses can 

 only be bred to pay on an extensive scale on such marshy 

 and waste lands as are not utilised for cultivation. As these 

 waste lands are being rapidly drained and broug'ht under 

 cultivation, the area used for horse-breeding constantly 

 diminishes, and many owners give up their business, or are 

 satisfied to let the remnants of their old breeds go on as best 

 they can. This abandonment of the breeding has also caused 

 a deterioration in the quality. There are two further impor- 

 tant causes of the decline in quality. The first is the system 

 of looking for immediate instead of future profit. The horse- 

 breeder presents all his beasts — stallions, mares, and geldings 

 — to the Army Remount Commission, which naturally picks 

 out the best animals, and the breeder goes on breeding from 

 the remainder, so that by eliminating the good material, and 

 breeding from the bad, the stock gets worse and worse. The 

 second cause is that although the Government goes to con- 

 siderable trouble and expense to buy good stallions at home 

 .and abroad, and lets them out at very low prices, the custom 



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