BREEDING OF HUNTERS AND HACKS. 
487 
forgets it; and from the day he is dropped he must be the 
object of some care and attention. Does the dam give a 
good supply of milk ? Does the young thing look as if he 
was doing well? Let his feet be looked to, as he grows on; 
and, above all, let him be well kept, have a fair supply of 
corn, comfortable sheltered quarters, and so forth. I am no 
advocate for over-coddling, nor would I wish to see the hunt¬ 
ing-colt brought on as if his mission was to win the Derby ; 
but liberal rations, kindly treatment, and gentle handling 
will all tell by the time he is first led into the show-ring, or 
delivered over to the breaker. I confess to having some 
dread of that same country breaker, with all his wonderful 
paraphernalia, and apparently indispensable habit of hanging 
about public-houses, as a means for making young horses 
handy. No man needs more watching; and, as I have just 
intimated, a vast deal may be done towards making the 
young one temperate before ever he reaches this trying stage 
in his career. 
The horse is by nature a social animal; and, especially after 
weaning, two or three of the foals will do better in company, 
due care being taken that any one of them does not become 
too much of ^^the master-pig,^^ and get all the good things for 
himself—to correct which they should be separated at feeding¬ 
time. When together, they will challenge each other to 
strike out a bit; whereas the solitary mopes about with 
but little incentive to try his paces, and is much like a boy 
brought up at his mother’s apron-string, or a young fox¬ 
hound that has lost his friends. I should hope by this that 
a duly-qualified veterinary surgeon is ’within hail of most 
farmers, and I would leave it to this gentleman to throw his 
eye occasionally over the little stud, arrange the proper period 
for castration, and other such detail that will necessarily have 
to be adapted to time and place. On any such minutiae of 
the matter it is not within my purpose here to enter, even if 
it would be profitable to do so. This paper rather professes 
to deal with the great principles of breeding riding-horses, 
and in seeing these carried out with a little more heart and 
judgment than they generally have been. 
One word more for the veterinarian. Nothing can be 
more wholesome than the regulation which, after considerable 
discussion and division, the Council of the Royal Agricultural 
Society are still able to insist upon as part of their proceed¬ 
ings—viz., that every horse entered for exhibition shall be 
examined and passed by a duly-appointed veterinary surgeon 
previous to his facing the judges. It is true that the latter 
should and might be able to reject an unsound animal with- 
