96 Supply of Horses adapted to the Eiu/lish Army. 
for the military service, for which more mares than horses are 
purchased for the cavahy, though in the artillery a gelding has 
more decidedh' the preference. 
With other stock, that desideratum, an increase in price, seems 
to be at once responded to by improved supplies ; and we feel at 
a loss to account for the exceptional supineness or want of skill 
which cannot be tempted even by that bait to the display of 
more energy in horse-breeding. 
If the farmer were more successful, his better fortune would 
be reflected upon the mounted part of our army, for the raising 
of the value of his produce would inevitably lead to an advance 
in the Government allowance ; and although we do not suppose 
for a moment that his produce would ever sell for the facti- 
tious prices (ten to fifteen hundred guineas each), which are 
realised at one or two of the annual sales of blood stock, yet we 
think that by more attention to conformation, action, and age in 
the parents, and by the discontinuance of the practice of leaving 
the produce, when weaned, to eke out an eleemosynary sub- 
sistence on the marsh or moorside, breeding horses for general 
purposes might be made a more profitable occupation than it 
appears to be at present. 
Mistakes sometimes arise because the quality of a horse is 
thought to be discovered whilst he is yet very young, and he 
is either pampered or half-starved according as he may be 
considered prospectively capable of splitting a Leicestershire 
" bullfinch " or an enemy's squadron. And hence the cavalry 
often gets a thin horse, which, when properly nurtured in a regi- 
ment, developes qualities that, as the " best-mannered horse " in 
a crack dealer's hands, would swell the tens he cost into hun- 
dreds. 
The Remount System in the French Army. 
The state of the market for horses in France differs very mate- 
rially from our own, the State being there not only a *more 
important customer, but having entered into, or forestalled com- 
petition to some degree as a breeder. Of the Royal Establish- 
ments of brood-mares formed some years back, some have of 
late been abandoned, and others restricted or threatened with 
dissolution — probably from the results produced not answering 
expectation ; and the Government seems more and more dis- 
posed to rely on the general market for a supply, and to encourage 
it by a steady system of purchase rather than by direct sub- 
sidies. 
The following information condensed from an official report on 
the Remount System in the French Army may afford some 
useful hints for our own consideration. In France, as among our- 
