Breeding and Management of Horses on a Farm. 545 
losses that many men incur by breeding them, more especially as 
the greater proportion of farmers are ignorant of the principles 
of breeding, and are incapable of forming a correct judgment 
upon the most important points of the sire and dam they may 
select, both with regard to their formation and their blood. 
The real fact, however^, is this. A farmer breeds a colt, and 
at five years old the expense of rearing him may be 50/. But 
this sum not having come out of his pocket at once, but having 
gradually and insensibly melted away in the shape of grass, oat- 
straw, and now and then a few quarters of corn, it has not at any 
one paiticular time made any great inroad upon his pocket, and 
consequently, if he want to pay his rent, or to make any purchase 
which is likely to be beneficial to him, he takes perhaps 40Z. for 
the colt that has cost him 50Z., and thinks himself both lucky to 
get that sum, and likewise a provident man, to have kept that by 
him that has been so valuable in a time of need. 
Now close calculators, writing upon farming matters generally, 
would greatly blame the farmer for a yearly expenditure in grass, 
&c., which, in the aggregate, amounts to a greater sum than the 
animal on which it has been expended will eventually realize, 
and would proceed, no doubt, to demonstrate, most satisfactorily 
to themselves, that, had the same amount of food been applied to 
the fatting of a few sheep, and to keeping a cow, the mutton, 
butter, and milk would have returned a better profit than the 
horse. All this may, possibly, be true ; but we must remember 
that a first-rate horse of any breed may put a large sum, by way 
of profit, into his owner's pocket ; that most men are fond of 
horses, and will breed them when they have an opportunity of 
doing so; and that, with respect to the profit and loss, human 
nature is prone to disregard small outlays for any particular pur- 
pose, although when summed up they may amount to more than 
the object they have been lavished on be worth. Such being the 
feeling implanted in the nature of nine-tenths of the human race, 
when live stock of any kind thrive, pro\ided the farmer can rub 
on without being obliged to sell them at an improper time, they 
may be looked upon in the light of a live savings-bank, in which 
he weekly hoards up a certain sum which, under different cir- 
cumstances, he would probably think nothing of spending. Under 
this view, the breeding of horses may be considered advantageous 
to the farmer, even if his knowledge of the subject be but imper- 
fect ; but the man of judgment and science may render it a lucra- 
tive pursuit, without incurring a great deal of risk. 
Of the three different breeds of horses of which I have made 
mention, I should say that, upon moderately light soils, the 
carriage -horse is by far the most likely to be useful and profit- 
