Breeding Horses. 
257 
the longer they are kept ; with horses, the better they are the 
sooner they are sold, not even the very best young mares being 
reserved for the stud. Those that cannot find a customer are 
too frequently kept and bred from ; it is not an unusual saying 
with disappointed breeders, " If I cannot sell her I will put her 
to the horse." 
Great advances have been made in the breeding of cattle, 
sheep, and pigs, in every part of the United Kingdom during 
the last 40 years. What is the case with regard to horses? 
Have they not retrograded in the same degree ? Can the present 
race of horses be compared with those bred 40 years since ? 
The cart-horse, perhaps, is the only class that can bear the 
comparison. There is a cause for all this, which I shall mention 
hereafter. 
Here I close the general remarks, and proceed to mention the 
cart-horse I imported from France, with the result of my practice. 
I fancy some of my readers saying, What induced you to buy 
a French horse ? Could you not find one good enough in your 
own country ? My answer to those persons is, \ es, 1 could, and 
did so. I bought what I thought, and others thought too, a 
splendid horse ; I bred from him, and so did my neighbours, 
very good horses ; and I should have continued thinking there 
were no better cart-horses in the world than the English ; but 
in 1855 I went to the International Exhibition in Paris, where 
I had sent some short-horned cattle. There my attention was 
attracted to a class of horse I had never seen before. I looked at 
them and was astonished, seeing them drawing great long carts, 
as long as the English waggons, loaded Avith immense blocks of 
stone (not as ours are loaded in London, with two or three blocks), 
Avalking nimbly away the whole day from the pit to the building. 
These immense loads of stone made me think of the three or four 
dray-horses drawing at a much slower pace a few butts of be.er 
through the London streets. These horses, walking so nimbly 
Avitti these great loads of stone, were not so fat as our own 
favourites, but they seemed to me to be doing twice the work. 
Although leaner, they bore the strictest scrutiny ; the more I saw 
of them, the more I admired them. Meeting Mr. Jonas Webb, 
I called his attention to them. He said he had never seen such, 
before ; he had observed a horse taking into the shov/-yard an 
immense load of provender for the cattle, that astonished him 
beyond measure ; he had resolved to try to buy him, but he lost 
sight of him that day, and never saw him afterwards. I thought 
them so superior to ours, that I resolved to buy one to take home. 
Very much to my disappointment, I could not find one young 
enough and good enough to buy. I saw them every day at their 
work, but none for sale. I went through all the dealers' stables 
