518 Brecdiug and Management of Horses on a Farm. 
rishment to its offspring on which its growth and early develop- 
ment must principally, if not wholly depend. 
The best time of putting a mare to horse is somewhere about 
the beginning of April, if possible ; for then, by the time the 
foal is able to nibble, the weather will probably be warm, and 
the pastures full of sweet and nutritious grasses. A month later 
in the year may not be objectionable, when a farmer breeds 
solely for the purpose of obtaining a good hunter ; but if his 
mare be thorough- bred, and he wish to take the chance of 
having a foal with some pretensions to running, then the earlier 
a mare is stinted the better, for all running horses date their birth 
from the 1st of January, be they foaled when they may, and con- 
sequently it is of great importance that they be dropped as early 
in the year as may be, in order that their growth may be for- 
warded by every means that can be devised consistent with their 
healthy state. It is a question, however, whether very early foals, 
that are kept for months on artificial food, will be more forward 
at two years old than those dropped towards the end of the 
spring, and properly attended to subsequently ; but there can 
scarcely be a doubt that, as a mare goes somewhere about eleven 
months with young, and may not prove in foal for some time 
after she first goes to horse, the latter end of March or the be- 
ginning of April is quite late enough in the season for breeding. 
So much, then, for the principal points to which attention is to 
be directed in the choice of stallions and mares for breeding the 
nearly, or quite thorough-bred hunter of the present day. Should 
the produce not prove fit for the field, it will rarely fail to make 
a harness-horse of considerable value. The same regard is to be 
paid to the different points of those mares and stallions that are 
selected for the purpose of breeding carriage-horses as to those 
already referred to in speaking of the hunter, but both sire and 
dam should be of larger mould, and it is not necessary that either 
of them be thorough-bred. A large, roomy, half-bred mare, if 
put to a three-parts-bred stallion of considerable power, and 
gifted with good action, will probably throw a colt well adapted 
for a gentleman's carriage, provided sufiiclent attention to sound- 
ness, and those material ponits which have already been noticed, 
be paid by the breeder in making choice of them. The greater 
number of these animals arc bred in Yorkshire and the adjoining 
counties, and arc generally known as the Cleveland breed. There 
can, however, be no reason why a similar, or Indeed a better sort 
of carriage-horse, should not be bred by any farmer who possesses 
sound judgment, and a sufhclcncy of good pasture to ensure llie 
proper development of his young stock. Very many of the 
Cleveland horses are disfigured by having large heads and Roman 
noses; audit is only when those parts ;ue, to a certain extent, 
