82 
Relative Profits to the Farmer from 
on to keep up the carriage- and saddle-horse supply, especially 
since the production of beef and mutton has become so profit- 
able. Cattle can be turned advantageously into the market in 
half the time required to mature carriage- or riding-horses, and 
sheep in one-third the time. True, horses are earlier saleable 
than they were some years ago, but still they do not go readily 
off under four years of age. Then, while there is no lack of 
good sound bulls and rams to breed from, there is a lamentable 
deficiency of stallions of this character. In fact, this is the 
greatest drawback to successful and extensive horse-breeding. 
Mr. J. B. Booth says : — " The great difficulty in the present 
day is to obtain a good sire to put mares to. It is the breeding 
from unsound sires which has caused many farmers to be dis- 
appointed in breeding horses, and so give it up. A law should 
be made prohibiting any horse affected with hereditary diseases 
(such as roaring, »Scc.) from serving mares ; and I would require 
each stallion to be examined by a veterinary surgeon appointed 
by Government, and to be certified by him as sound, before he 
should be allowed to serve a mare." If I mistake not, steps 
similar to these have already been adopted in some parts of the 
Continent for the propagation of sound healthy stock. Mr, 
Booth used to breed a considerable number of horses, but owing 
to the difficulty of obtaining sound good sires, he has, like not 
a few others, almost given it up, and has taken to cattle- 
breeding, " with profitable results." 
Mr. Finlay Dun states that he knows of two farms in War- 
wickshire on which the breeding of first-class hunting- and 
carriage-horses, though carefully attended to, proved commercial 
failures ; and further, that he has known of scores of young 
farmers in the Midland counties enter with intelligence, zeal, and 
enterprise into the breeding of nags, but, for reasons fully stated 
in Mr. Dun's report (page 28), " the systematic breeding of 
nags is relinquished, and from the Irish and Welsh droves the 
young farmer finds it more profitable to purchase three- or four- 
year-olds, even though they now cost from 40Z. to 60/." 
" Hacks," says Mr. G. A. Gray, Millfield, Wooler, " cannot 
be bred to a profit on any land. Hunters will not on the 
average pay for breeding." For many years Mr. Gray bred a 
great number of hunters, yet he adds : — " Although I have sold 
many individual animals lor high prices, I am well aware they 
never paid me nearly so well as cattle or sheep would have done. 
Indeed, they generally proved a loss ; and but for the pleasure 
of having such animals to look at, educate, and ride, I should 
not advise any one to breed them." 
Mr. Thos. l"'orstcr, Ellingham, has bred this class of horses, 
but he says : — " I have given them up, and I know one or two 
