How they may he Utilised by Pony Breeding. 
507 
management in every way ; their business would be really a 
pleasure, and there would not be call enough upon their time to 
render it irksome to them. 
The first thing to determine would be the number of mares 
that the hill would carry in its natural state, so as to do them 
well ; for in breeding ponies, as in everything else, we must never 
lose sight of the fact that starvation must be as far as possible 
avoided ; at the same time what I may term the original stock 
should live entirely in a natural state on the hill, except in very 
severe weather indeed. Having determined this, the next thing 
for consideration is the breed, and here my advice would be to 
stick to the aboriginal breed of the country, where there is one, 
save the Highlanders, and where there is not one, I would try 
Exmoors. Of course a certain number of these must be served 
with a sire of their own breed to keep up this stock, for we 
must bear in mind that the improved cross to which I shall 
presently revert will not bear the exposure of the hill in winter. 
As they are very hardy and long-lived, as a rule these ponies 
would be easily kept up to the mark, though it would be wise 
to draft a certain number of old ones every year, and put in 
so many younger. Perhaps it would be found more advisable 
to buy than to breed them, but that is a matter for individual 
consideration. 
The next thing in pony-breeding, to make it profitable and to 
bring an improvement in the hill-pony, is what sire they should 
be mated with. Some perhaps would say the Arab, and if he 
could be got really first-rate, there is a great deal to be advanced 
in his favour ; he is a wonderfully expanding animal, that is to 
say, he often gets stock larger than himself from big mares, and 
no doubt he would improve the size of these ponies. Moreover, 
he is very hardy, and no animal sustains vicissitudes of climate 
so well ; as a rule he is very sound, having capital feet, with legs 
like bars of steel, while of his endurance there is no need to say 
anything here. In Sidney's ' Book of the Horse ' he tells us of 
" Little Wonder, a chestnut entire pony under 14 hands high, 
and well known with the Queen's hounds. He was cat-hammed 
and goose-rumped ; in fact, except his blood-head and well- 
carried tail, very mean-looking ; and yet he could gallop like a 
race-horse, jump wide places that would stop the best part of 
a field, and never tired in the longest day. On one occasion, 
carrying 10 stone, in a field of four hundred, with the Queen's 
hounds, in a run in which nine-tenths of the field were pumped 
out and squandered all over the country, he galloped up in the 
second flight when the deer was being taken ; that is to say, 
five horsemen, some on their second horses, first, and then a 
little clump led by the Yeoman Prickers. Little Wonder was 
