415 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON THE BREEDING OF HUNTERS AND HACKS. 
By Henry Corbet. 
{From the New Part of the ^ Path and West of England Societfs 
Journal.^') 
Perhaps the best introduction to this paper would be a 
reference to the prize-sheet of the approaching Exeter 
Meeting of the Bath and West of England Society, where 
two handsome premiums appear for thorough-bred stallions 
best calculated to get hunters and hacks.^^ In a national 
point of view, the good policy of calling more attention to 
this subject cannot for a moment be questioned, while the 
duty of doing so comes quite as legitimately within the scope 
of an agricultural association. All the rest of the world is 
even more inclined than ever to turn to us for their best 
horses, as for their best cattle or sheep. There is, in fact, no 
breed of animal that commands so ready a market as a good 
riding-horse; and yet, strange to say, there is no other 
branch of buisiness so fortuitously suppled. Saving in York¬ 
shire, Lincolnshire, and parts of ‘'^the shires,^^ the breeding 
of horses is mere chance-work; and the very gentlemen of 
the district, when they are in want of a promising hunter or 
clever hack, have but too often to import him from else¬ 
where. The mere rumour, indeed, of a smartish four-year- 
old will bring Mr. Oldacre or Mr. Weston some two or three 
hundred miles specially to look at him; and dealers and 
their agents now attend our great summer shows almost as 
regularly as they do the autumn fairs, just for a glance over 
the hunting classes, already so attractive a feature in the 
proceedings. 
And yet farmers will tell you that, as a rule, breeding 
nags does not pay; as, under the circumstances, it would 
be rather a curious thing if it did. As a rule, breeding 
such stock does not answer, because they are bred without 
any rule at all. In these days, if a tenant wishes to rear a 
good beast, he takes especial care to secure the services of a 
good bull, as with the same ambition he will bid up for a 
Cotswold shearling or a Southdown ram. If, moreover, he 
really means to succeed, he will be almost as scrupulous in ' 
