INCREASING OUR SUPPLIES OF CAVALRY HORSES. 29 
than half-bred, or in other mares it resembles its high-bred 
sire more closely than its low-bred dam. Supposing then 
that a person wishes to have a horse resembling a three-parts 
bred weight- carrying hunter, the most unlikely method which 
he can take to gratify his desire is to put a mare to a stallion 
so bred. Like effects are produced by like causes, and by 
no other. His weight-carrying hunter having been produced 
not thus, but quite otherwise, so he may be assured that only 
as it was produced, and in no other way, has he any chance 
of obtaining its like again. A three-parts bred sire, let his 
individual excellence be what it may, is a mongrel and 
nothing else ; and it is against every calculation of proba- 
bility to assume that he will perpetuate his own good quali- 
ties to the exclusion of the baser elements which exist in his 
pedigree. 
Or, to view the subject for a moment under another 
aspect. It is quite possible that the great grandsire of the 
three-parts bred stallion may have been a cart-horse. It is 
notorious that in numerous cases the offspring partakes less 
of the character of its immediate parents than of its remoter 
ancestors. Who then shall guarantee the offspring of such 
a sire from exhibiting one or more of the undesirable quali- 
ties of such a cross, either the heavy shoulder, or the deficient 
courage of the cart-horse? Let not authority then, however 
high, tempt the farmers of England so far to depart from 
sound principle as thus to breed ; for they may be assured 
by so doing they are, in a matter sufficiently dark and intri- 
cate, throwing away every guide and landmark which might 
otherwise aid them in their course. 
The only method of increasing the number of really valu- 
able horses which can be depended upon, is for every man 
who has a good mare, of whatever breed, (always excepting 
those only adapted for the dray) to send them to the best 
thorough-bred stallion within his reach. If a mare is worth 
breeding from at all, she will in this manner produce a better 
foal than any other. Suppose, for instance, that she is a 
cart-mare, at once powerful and active, a good bay or brown, 
quick stepping, and with a roomy frame ; it is highly proba- 
ble that her offspring by a well-selected thorough-bred horse 
will turn out a handsome carriage-horse, or one well-adapted 
for artillery service. Suppose, however, that her owner does 
not desire to sell her for either purpose, and only wishes to 
breed for the purpose of recruiting his team. Well, in that 
case he will obtain an animal which will accomplish, if well 
kept, at least one-third more work than an ordinary farm- 
horse. Were the teams of my Staffordshire and Derbyshire 
