27ie Report of the Royal Commission on IIorse-Breeding. 299 
Mr. Welby would like to see Lord Harrington's ideas as 
regards produce (and as earned out at Lord Harrington's own 
shows) developed, and thinks this would benefit the mares. 
He tells us later : — " ... I want to get as much money as it is 
possible to get together for the benefit of mares and early pro- 
duce. That is the only panacea that I can see. . . . " 33 Captain 
Heygate again distressed me ; and his view of mares generally 
furnishes another way of accounting for his equine Schopenhauer 
philosophy. Mr. Gilmour put to him the following question : — 
" The most practical way to get an average breed of sound mares 
in the country is, in the first place, to put sound stallions at a low 
fee within the reach of these tenant farmers ; are the fillies thus 
produced not likely to grow into better mares than the produce 
of these horses that the tenants in your district have been using 
up to now for some years past ? " And Major Heygate's reply 
was : — " Using these horses cannot hurt, but I do not see that 
it will do much good, because I think whatever horse is put to 
these mares it will produce an animal which it will not pay to 
rear." 34 
Mr. Jackson says as to mares — a point to which he has 
given much attention — " It would be better if something could 
be done to keep more mares in the country," and that giving prizes 
for good brood mares " would encourage the breeding of horses." 
He adds, " we are far shorter of mares than horses in our dis- 
trict, I think it is so all over the country. I travel about," he 
says, " a good deal, and I fail to see any good mares hardly any- 
where, at any rate, very few. I think especially that the well- 
bred mares have decreased." Mr. Jackson, however, agrees 
with the large majority of witnesses that no veterinary examin- 
ation can be imposed upon mares, and thinks that until we give 
the mares a subsidy we cannot " come at it." 35 
Lord Portsmouth says it is a " waste to see the wretched 
mares that people put to the premium stallions," but he thinks 
a selection system presents difficulties. He says, "The difficulty 
would be that you would give such offence, and anything of that 
sort deters a man from breeding. "Wretched, shabby-looking, 
little mares are very often the best bred mares. If you begin 
53 3872. ** 3156. 
35 3056. (Mr. T. B. Jacltsori) " You do not give the mare any prize ; if you 
give the mare a prize, then you would come at it. You do not subsidise the 
mare, but you subsidise the horse, and you bind them to be sound, and I do 
not think that you can go to the mare and have her examined. People would 
turn round, and some of them would not allow their mares to be put to your 
horse. I do not think that anybody should interfere to prevent a man from 
breeding from a sound or an unsound mare." 
