338 
Breeding of Hunters and Roadsters. 
this source of supply is limited, uncertain, very costly, and 
prejudicial to the public interests. 
If the whole number of blood-stock bred in England, in any 
given year, were looked over when yearlings by good judges, 
less than 10 per cent, of them would probably be pronounced 
likely to make hunters able to carry 14 stone ; and if it were 
possible that a few of the most powerful of these could be 
secured for the purpose and converted into geldings, as in most 
cases would be necessary, our supply of hunters would be but 
little extended, whilst the process would sap the very foundation 
of our breeding establishments. 
If only ten of the best-looking stout yearlings were annually 
picked out, amongst them would be comprised those of the 
' Stockwell ' and ' Voltigeur ' class, and thus the standard of the 
horses to which breeders must turn for purity and stoutness would 
at once be lowered. All such exceptionally good horses as are 
here contemplated, whether bred or bought, would cost the owner 
probably lOOOZ. apiece before they reached the age, or had passed 
through the changes and ordeals necessary to make the hunter. 
Although the training-stable may readily mount the light-weights, 
or even furnish brilliant chargers for the army, it is only by 
forethought and good management applied to cross-breeding that 
men of heavy weight can be adequately supplied with hunters. 
Size, substance, and power, with sufficient speed, may thus be 
secured, whilst in symmetry nothing, perhaps, may be wanting. 
The history of tlie English hunter goes farther back than that 
of fox-hunting. The various accounts given of the Roman con- 
quest of Britain inform us, that even then, England furnished good 
horses, and that, some 1500 years before we have any authentic 
record of the importation of Eastern blood for the improvement 
of the native breed. We have had, then, an old English race 
of horses, the history of which is lost in the distance of time ; 
and from that stock, no doubt, the sfcimina and peculiar character 
of the English hunter of all times has been in a great measure 
derived. Moreover, if we take into account the fact that the natives 
of Britain have always been skilled in and pre-eminently fond of 
the chase, we may reasonably infer that they cherished and 
prized horses suited for that purpose when hunting was a national 
service no less than a s])ort and pastime. 
It may be true that men in our own time take to themselves 
too exclusively the credit of attention to improvements in horse- 
breeding. Tlie answers which History, when impartially studied, 
gives to our inquiries, often tell two ways, and with a ben(^fit 
received, exhibits an attendant drawback. VV hen the land is 
placed under cultivation, and the animals that feed on it are 
