454 Report on the Studs and Breeds of Horses in Hungary. 
The Average Country Horse. 
I will now describe the average country horse one naeets 
with in travelling through the country. I attended the large 
fair at Sthulweissenburgh and Pesth, where I saw a large col- 
lection of the average breed. The vast majority are what we 
would call in this country weedy ponies, very well bred, with 
small limbs, bad hocks, narrow chests, narrow through, with, 
however, good feet, apparently docile enough, and of great 
endurance. Height 13 to 15 hands, the majority, however, 
are under 14. They show all the indications of deficient keep 
in their early foalhood and premature work, the same, or 
nearly so, as we find in the country-bred in India, and from 
the same cause — viz. deficient pasturage or keep. It is the 
sedulous effort of the Government to raise this standard by 
every means in its power, by providing good stallions and 
granting prizes ; and there can be no doubt that, but for the 
persistent efforts thus systematically made, the breed would 
further degenerate. Climate does, however, in the long run 
determine what the race of horses or other animals is to be; 
and on this account I have no hesitation in saying that, with 
all the machinery, large and most costly establishments, and 
conducted on the best principles, the average breed of the 
country will never reach the standard of our own, for the 
simple reason that the pasturage, dependent on climate, is 
deficient in amount and nutriment. The only means of 
compensating for this want is by grain-feeding, what, in fact, 
we find is adopted in the studs; but for the ordinary country 
farmer this mode of rearing the young stock would be found 
too costly. 
I was somewhat surprised, considering that the horse is of 
primary importance to the farmer in Hungary, that greater care 
is not bestowed on the rearing and feeding of the animal. I 
was under the impression, when serving in India as Super- 
intendent of the Bombay Stud Establishment, that if the horse 
was a necessity to the Indian farmers in their agricultural 
operations, the breed would improve independently of State 
aid ; but in Hungary it is not so. Horses of the stamp I have 
described, literally swarm over the country. With the excep- 
tion of the heavy ploughing, which is performed by draught 
oxen, all the work of the farm, ploughing, harrowing, carting, 
marketing, travelling, &c., is done with their light four-wheeled 
waggons, drawn by a pair of ponies or galloways, often three, 
sometimes five abreast, with the foals running at the side, and, 
at an early age, these take their places in the team. Except in 
the German districts on the Austrian frontier, I saw no draught 
