76 
Horse-breeding for Profit. 
Normans and grey in colour, and all the colts have turned out bays. This 
convinces me that they breed wonderfully true to colour. As far as our 
experience goes, we are more than pleased with the results so far, and con- 
sider the breed the best general purpose or coach-horse that can be raised, 
and the most profitable for a farmer to raise. The farmers in this vicinity 
are very much taken with them. 
The above American opinions, with many others almost 
identical in expression, have been kindly furnished me by Mr. 
Frank Stericker, of Pickering, Yorks ; his firm of Stericker 
Brothers, in Illinois, have imported Clevelands largely into that 
State, and I have a list of sixty-six Cleveland stallions standing 
at their stud farm. 
Before leaving the Cleveland I would state it as my deliberate 
and confident opinion that the farmer who has two good Cleveland 
mares cannot fail in breeding the highest class of carriage-horse 
at a large profit. A draught of Cleveland mares will kill a pair 
of any other agricultural horses if matched against them by the 
day or the year (though it may require a North Country plough- 
man to walk after them), for as Mr. John W. Sanner, quoted 
above, says : “ No horse exists that has as much strength to the 
weight of the animal as the Eoyal Bay.” The sire that must 
be used for such mares should have blood, quality, and action, be 
he Thoroughbred, Hackney, or Coach-horse. 
Carriage-horses from Yorkshire, as was proved before the 
Lords’ Committee on Horses, presided over by Lord Rosebery, 
in 1873, command a higher price than the Norfolk and others, 
as the Norfolk breeder was careless whether he bred from a black 
with white legs, a grey, a chestnut, or a roan, whilst the York- 
shire horse was almost invariably a hay or brown. There are on 
the side of the Cleveland brood-mare power, activity, substance, 
good action, hardihood, and a certain amount of quality. 
Let us inquire into the demand for the carriage-horse. 
Before the Royal Commission on Horse-breeding (1873) all 
witnesses were unanimous in deploring the scarcity of Yorkshire 
horses. The dealers in London and the middlemen all described 
their inability — at any price — any longer to obtain these in 
Yorkshire, and the way in which year by year they had gone 
further afield — to tfermany, to France, to Ireland, and to 
America — to supply the demand. Since then there has been a 
revival of horse-breeding at home, as the figures for the export 
of homebred horses show : — 
No. of Horses Value 
exported £ 
1879 6,018 296,052 
1889 14,206 984,611 
1890 12j91G 687,978 
Average Price 
£ s. d. 
58 16 0 
69 0 4 
53 5 4 
