174 IMPROVEMENT OF THE BREEDS 
ing the breeds of saddle horses, in times past so much in request 
for commercial and military purposes.” This is a remark ap- 
plicable out of the country in which it was made. We are 
afraid our own land has rendered itself amenable to the reflection. 
We no longer see in it, or at least nothing like in the same ratio, 
horses of that useful character for general purposes which it once 
could abundantly boast of. On the turf, our King’s plate horses 
have given place to high-flyers. The hunting field is beset 
with the same stamp of horse in lieu of the old, weight-carrying, 
enduring hunter; our heavy dragoons are under-mounted; our 
artillery weakly horsed to what they were wont to be ; and all 
because we, in our eagerness to gain possession of blood of horses, 
have lost sight of the really useful and serviceable breed. 
Such being, beyond contradiction, the condition of our breeds 
of horses of the present day, it becomes a duty imperative on 
us, as it has seemed to be on the French writer, to inquire into 
the causes of these sad fallings-off in our equine stock; for 
“fallings-off,” and grievous ones, they most unquestionably are. 
In the translated article, from which we have been quoting, it 
is stated, that the introduction of English blood for the alleged 
purpose of “ regenerating” their “ old stock” has worked un- 
favourable changes among the horses in France. Crossing, 
says the writer of it, can only be practised with advantage so 
long as we attend to the laws which, according both to nature 
and reason, govern the process. “ The study of the most ele- 
mentary principles for the improvement of animals teaches us, 
that, in order to improve the breed of a country, it becomes 
requisite to cross it with other breeds which possess at least some 
analogy of structure with it, providing that be of a superior order. 
So far, concerning the blood. But to be added to this, there is 
another consideration, which is, that we must not only take care 
to produce a fitting progeny, but to rear such progeny profitably, 
when once we have produced it ; i. e. we must feed it, house it 
well, &c. &c. To the neglect or disregard of one or both of these 
considerations it is that the French writer ascribes the failure 
in his own country of breeding to advantage by crossing their 
indigenous stock with British thorough-breds. 
That racing has, up at least to a certain point, been produc- 
tive of the happiest effects in improving most of the breeds of 
