IN WHAT ARE CALLED THE BREEDING DISTRICTS. 378 
has, 1 think, mainly contributed to get the best material for 
breeding out of the farmers’ hands : the hard times, perhaps, 
have done the rest. 
In the first place, I may observe, that thirty years ago no gen¬ 
tleman would be seen riding a mare at all: it was considered 
vulgar, or was unfashionable. There was, therefore, but little de¬ 
mand for them in the London market; and there being no other 
outlet, they were consequently left, for the most part, in the far¬ 
mers’ hands, who kept them principally for their own use. You 
would then see them riding to market mounted upon the finest 
mares possible; and having such a choice, they naturally selected 
from amongst them the best for the purpose of breeding. 
Like produces like: the stock would seldom disappoint them. 
And, although they might not get so large a price then as they 
could now for a good horse, yet, as they produced them more 
generally good, they were, upon the whole, better remunerated 
for breeding these animals. 
It is about twenty-five years since we first began to take marcs 
for the cavalry. Before that period, our dragoons w r ere mounted, 
almost exclusively, upon geldings. Now, howxver, there is no 
exception made ; and as we commonly get a better animal, being 
a mare, than a gelding, at the troop price; so we have, ever 
since the removal of the restriction, been admitting a very great 
proportion of mares into all the regiments of cavalry. These, for 
the most part, are kept until they become old and worn out in the 
service, especially if they be good ones, and consequently unfit 
for the purpose of breeding. 
Then, again, there is the demand for the foreign market. 
Since the peace, all restrictions having been removed, and we allow 
foreigners to come and take aw r ay as many of our horses as they 
please. And certainly, within the last ten or fifteen years, a vast 
number of our finest three-parts bred mares have been exported 
to various parts of the continent, particularly to France and Ger¬ 
many. These, it should be remembered, never find their way 
back again : and this is not like exporting a piece of manufac¬ 
tured goods; for here we are parting with the raw material: and, 
by so doing, w^e should also recollect, that we are not only giving 
foreigners the means of manufacturing for themselves, but arc, 
at the same time, shortening our own power of production. 
The people of the continent will never give us credit for this 
as a piece of gratuitous generosity; and whatever benefit may be 
expected to arise to our manufactured goods from the free trade 
system, with respect to our horses I will venture to say it must 
have a very different effect. The money brought into the country 
by the export ol these animals is but a mere trifle—a drop in the 
