IMPROVEMENT OP AGRICULTURAL HORSES. 
629 
by those beautiful dyes which have sprung up to-day from 
aniline^ which yesterday was a chemical novelty in the hands 
of a first-rate investigator .^^—Chemical News. 
THE IMPROVEMENT OE AGRICULTURAL HORSES SUITED 
TO THE 'WEST OE ENGLAND. 
By Professor Brown^ AI.R.C.V.S. 
The economical application of motive power to the opera¬ 
tions of husbandry is a very serious question to the farmer of 
the present day. The great problem now requiring solution 
refers to steam-cultivation; but in whatever way it may be 
ultimately decided, there is no reason to doubt that horses 
will always be an important and indispensable portion of the 
motive agencies. However active the imagination may be in 
originating expedients and suggesting the application of new 
forces, it is not possible to conceive a piece of mechanism so 
portable and so perfectly under control as to supersede the 
agricultural horse, or in any great degree to officiate in his 
stead. 
As the great value of the horse is in general terms ad¬ 
mitted, it is a somewhat sincular circumstance that so much 
less attention has been paid to his production and preserva¬ 
tion than to that of the other kinds of live-stock on the farm. 
On comparing the uncultivated breeds of cattle, sheep, and 
pigs, with the improved varieties, we at once recognise and 
appreciate the successful results of a patient application of 
the principles of breeding and management; but turning our 
attention to the horses, probably upon the same farm, our 
admiration is very likely to be exchanged for regret that so 
integral a part of the farm stock should bear such unmis¬ 
takable evidence of neglect and mismanagement. 
In the endeavour to account for the comparative indiffer¬ 
ence with which the horse upon the farm is regarded, we are 
required to remember tliat, while the improvement of flocks 
and herds is in intimate association with the culture of the 
soil, the horse seems, in some way, to take an isolated posi¬ 
tion, being apparently estimated in the light of a motive 
power in connection with the machinery of the farm, rather 
than as a part of the live stock w hose production and improve¬ 
ment come within the province of the agriculturist. 
There are, no doubt, many reasons why farmers in general 
find it more convenient to purchase these animals than to 
