600 Report on the Exhibition of Live-Stock at Taunton. 
horses is generally bad throughout the county. Say what we 
will against the modern system of racing, there can be no deny- 
ing the fact that a few good thoroughbred stallions in a district 
do much towards leavening the whole lump ; and for this reason, 
if for no other, it is to be hoped that some of the landowners 
in the county of Somerset will enable their tenants to share in 
the benefits of Lord Calthorpe's fund. For obvious reasons, the 
Society, itself engaged in the task of endeavouring to improve 
our breed of horses, was unable to become a subscriber to this 
fund, which, from its very nature, appeals to private enterprise. 
Nor is it very much to expect that a hundred gentlemen should be 
found willing to pay the sum of lOOZ. for five years, in order that 
an experiment, which, if it succeeds, must confer lasting benefit on 
the agricultural community, should have a fair trial. There is no 
lack of money in the county ; and the largest landowners, many 
of whom were present at Taunton, were enabled to see for them- 
selves how poor a figure their county made in one of the smallest 
and most indifferent shows of horses which the Society has had 
for many years. Some five-and-twenty years ago races were 
held at Taunton, upon ground not very far from that on which 
the Show took place, but they, together with several other 
race-meetings in the county, died out for want of support — 
one sign, amongst many, that the breeding of horses was but 
little cultivated. The limited number of local entries helped to 
make the show of horses smaller even than it would otherwise 
have been, but the difference between the Bedford total of 412 
and the 235 entries at Taunton was too great to be accounted for 
altogether in this way. Perhaps many of the exhibitors who 
never miss an important Show, and who exhibit more with a 
view to sale than anything else, may have fancied that their 
horses would not be properly appreciated at Taunton, or, if 
appreciated, not bought at the price which they might fetch in 
or near the metropolis. They were wise in their generation, no 
doubt, for the Somersetshire people do not seem to have ^become 
alive to the vast increase which there has been of late years in 
the value of horse-flesh, and tlie necessity of paying a very long 
price if you wish to get a good animal. Still, it is quite 
possible that exhibitors do not take sufficiently into account 
the readiness of foreign buyers to give large prices for horses 
adapted to their wants ; and, as some large transactions are 
reported to have taken place at Taunton, in which foreigners 
figured as purchasers, many exhibitors will regret that they did 
not send something into Somersetshire. 
The agricultural horses used in Somersetshire arc perhaps 
as bad as are to be found in any other part of England ]■ 
and the few specimens sent to Taunton, principally from the 
