Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 29 
Small farmers, especially in Scotland, are usually the most successful cart- 
horse breeders. They devote to the pursuit special individual attention, fre- 
quently work themselves or overlook the working of the in-foal mare, and 
carefully feed and handle the young one. Without a large paddock or field 
of permanent pasture in which the colts can take exercise, even in bad weather 
and throughout the winter, the difficulties and risks of rearing young horses 
are greatly increased. Heavy land is unsuitable for horse-breeding ; it becomes 
readily poached, and tries too severely the strength, pace, and smartness of 
the j'oungsters when first put to the collar. Farms abounding in steep hills, 
devoid of good roads, where there are heavy extra demands on the horse- 
power for haulage of town manure, building materials, or draining-pipes, are 
unsuitable, if not for the breeding, at least for the breaking-in of horses, and 
Buch farms are most profitably worked by purchased seasoned horses. 
The breeding of horses is most successfully carried out on the lighter and drier 
soils, where the rent is moderate, where a considerable area is in permanent 
pasture, where the water supply is regular and abundant, where the enclosures 
are small so as to avoid more than three or four young horses being turned out 
together, and where fences and gates can be maintained in a strong and per- 
fect state. On some rough woodland-pastures, especially at certain seasons, 
irritant plants are produced, or shoots of trees which scour cattle and sheep are 
eaten ; whilst among the old permanent pasture are sometimes developed bron- 
chial filaria, black-leg, or abortion in pregnant cows. Such grazings are 
often safely and profitably appropriated to horses. 
Without special taste on the part of the farmer, and special aptitude for 
breeding and making young horses, the breeding of hunters, hacks, or even of 
harness-horses, is seldom a paying pursuit. On arable farms, the successful 
breeding of such colts is almost imjx)ssible. On grass farms it cannot be satisfac- 
torily carried on without small enclosures, as of 6 or 8 acres, with field-hovels in 
which the young animals can in winter weather be sheltered and fed. Horses 
of the better-bred sorts are most profitably reared on low-rented farms, remote 
from towns, possessed of light dry soils, well watered, and where undulating 
surfaces determine sure-footedness and courage, with development of compact 
bone and firm muscle. But such well-bred colts, if thriving and liberally 
kept, are very constantly in mischief, breaking gates and fences, barking 
trees, galloping young cattle and sheep, and running serious risk of injuring 
themselves or their neighbours. The best cannot be made of them until they 
are over four j-ears old, and for fully a year before this they must be in the 
stable, handled and made more or less perfect in their duties. I am cognisant 
of two farms in Warwickshire, which for some years were sj^ecially devoted to 
the breeding of the best class of hunters and carriage-horses, were skilfully 
managed, but have both proved failures. I have known scores of young 
farmers in the midland counties of England enter with intelligence and zeal 
into the breeding of nags ; gi'udge no reasonable expense in gaining access to 
first-class sires ; persevere for some years ; get a few good colts and a proportion 
of misfits ; encounter the sad discouragement of valuable mares slipping foal 
or persistently proving barren ; sorrow over promising colts reduced to half 
their value by accident and unsoundness ; discover, alas too often ! just when 
the grand horse was fit to go, that he " made a little noise." With such un- 
satisfactory experiences the systematic breeding of nags is relinquished, and 
from the Irish or Welsh droves the young farmer finds it more profitable to 
purchase three- or four-year-olds, even though they now cost from 
to 
Good cart-horses find ready customers at any age ; are less destructive and 
more quiet when grazed amongst other stock. The high figures given for 
goo i cart-horses of all ages, and the especially remunerative sale of ordinary foals 
at thirty to forty guineas, have already had their natural effect in stimulating 
