68 Relative Profits to the Farmer from 
grazing land. As a rule, sheep will pay better than cattle; but they take 
more management, and are very often bungled, and therefore some farmers say 
they " can get more money out of their cattle." On deep rich pasture land, 
cattle will answer better; on light pastures, sheep will. If arable land, 
growing turnips, be so strong that sheep eating the turnips on the land would 
jDlunge it so that it would not work well afterwards for seed-corn, then the 
turnips must be carted off for cattle ; or if the land under turnips be so rich 
and good, that, were the turnips eaten-on by sheep, it would grow over heavy 
a crop of barley, then again the turnips must be carted off for cattle. On other 
kinds of arable land, sheep will pay the better, keeping out of the question the 
necessity of having straw made into manure by cattle. 
I have known several farmers who have given up horse-breeding because it 
did not pay. Breeding what are called " blood-horses " will not pay. I have 
bred theui myself and have given them up ; and I know one or two farmers who 
have bred them for thirty years, and have also given them up. I can safely 
say that they would have now been 5000?. richer had they never bred blood- 
horses, though they were considered to have bred them with more than ordinary 
success. We are indebted to the following causes for even the supply of bad 
blood-horses that we have. Many farmers have a hobby to see a colt or two 
nmning about their farms, and therefore breed them ; others have an old or 
lame mare and breed from her, because they do not know what else to do with 
her. " Oh ! I cannot be much out of pocket by having a single brood-mare,*^ 
they will tell you. But lately, since beef and mutton have got so dear, they 
do " begrudge " even the old brood-mare her meat, and prefer making it into 
beef and mutton. Again, a farmer who breeds blood-horses cannot put them 
into money when he wishes. He may have a nice, say five-years-old horse, 
that is really worth in the market 150Z., but still he finds he cannot, get the 
price for him when he wants, and for three, six, and even twelve months, the 
horse has to be kept on hand before he can be sold ; and then very often there is 
a misunderstanding about his soundness, &c. All this annoys and disgusts a 
farmer with the breeding of horses. Still a hobby to have the article goes a 
long way ; and it is more this hobby than the chance of profit that is the cause 
of farmers breeding blood-horses. 
In former times persons who principally made use of blood-horses, such as 
masters of hounds, cab-proprietors, &c., could buy them at little more than 
two-thirds of the cost it took to produce them. Now they have got dearer ; and 
though they will yet scarcely fetch the full extent of their cost, we hear a 
great deal of the scarcity and dearness of horses, because they are valued fromi 
the stand-point of price that they used to be formerly, which was much toO' 
cheap. They are still cheaper than beef and mutton to the purchaser. 
In breeding blood-horses, two causes act partly against each other. Firstl}', 
a breeder tries to have them handsome and good-looking, and for this pur- 
])ose he would put a handsome and good-looking mare to a handsome and 
good-looking horse. But then there is a second consideration comes in the 
way : that handsome and good-looking horse may have run last for the St. 
Leger, and the winner, who may neither be handsome nor good-looking, would 
very likely be preferred for a sire, simply because he had been a good per- 
former; and for some reasons it would be quite right that he should be, though" 
for other reasons it might be quite wrong. The class of horses in which 
hunters and carriage-horses may bo placed, is bred entirely on a wrong prin- 
ciple, or rather without any principle at all. Neither the care; nor the judg- 
ment, nor the experience is brought to bear on their production that is tised 
in the breeding of other kinds of good farm-stock. Take, for instance, Short- 
horn cattle or Leicester sheep ; no end of trouble is taken to produce the kind 
that is required: one type of animal is tried on another, and this strain of 
blood on that, and notes are taken how they answer or do not answ er, unt?! 
