122 Report upon the Spring Show of Thoroughbred Stallions. 
the movement, a great deal more may be done. As an expression 
of individual opinion, it is to be hoped that before long sub- 
stantial prizes may be offered for brood-mares belonging to 
bona fide farmers. But in order to encourage the keeping of the 
right stamp of mare, it might be well to exclude those below a 
certain height, say 15*2. It might be found possible to work 
out some such scheme as this : Allow a bond fide farmer to 
nominate, for the purposes of some particular show, a brood- 
mare belonging to one of his neighbours, to the squire or 
doctor, for instance, upon the understanding that if the mare won 
a prize she was either to be bought by the farmer at a certain 
price, or leased by him for a stated period for breeding purposes. 
The co-operation of the owner of the mare would of course be 
necessary ; and there are, it is believed, many persons who 
would aid the farmer in breeding, who have not the wish or 
convenience to undertake the task themselves. In the event of 
any such plan being adopted, it might be necessary to make the 
nominated mares a separate class by themselves. As in the 
case of the sires, there might be certain conditions annexed to 
the right to receive a prize, and the money might be withheld 
until those conditions had been complied with. In short, the 
future of horse-breeding in this country appears to depend upon 
how far the majority of farmers can be induced to take the 
matter up. In days gone by most of them bred a foal or 
two every year; will those times ever return? The Royal 
Agricultural and the Hunters' Improvement Societies have done 
their best to give horse-breeding a fillip, and the result of their 
endeavours will be awaited with interest. 
Since the foregoing was written, Lord Ribblesdale has stated 
in the House of Lords that he does not intend to allow the 
horse-supply question to drop, and that he will at a future time 
bring forward a scheme having for its object, the encouragement 
of breeding, with a view to increasing the supply that we so 
much need for the purposes of our army. The prohibition of 
the exportation of horses from foreign countries, the presence of 
foreign buyers at our home marts, and the renewed, and at the 
same time uncontradicted statements that our army is lament- 
ably short of horses, have one and all tended to direct fresh 
attention to a matter affecting, in one way or another, nearly 
every class. Could horses be obtained in England, there would 
scarcely be the need to order them from Canada. It has already 
been pointed out that the breeding of hunters is intimately 
connected with the supply of army horses, and also with that 
of harness-horses. A good specimen of a hunter cannot be put 
out of his place, and so while civil associations and private 
enterprise seek to further the breeding of hunters, they are at 
