BREEDING OF HUNTERS AND HACKS. 
417 
breed from tliem. Let us not stay here to inquire whether 
they be just the sort of thing for such a purpose; but let us, 
as the initiative, follow out the line of the soeiety, and shoAv 
our friend that he should do, in eontradistiiietion to that he 
too commonly has done. The great improver, then, of his 
species is the thorough-bred horse; and as a maxim, if you 
expect the produce of the half or even three-parts-bred mare 
to be worth rearing, you must put her to a sire who is as 
pure bred as Eclipse himself. There may be occasional ex¬ 
ceptions ; but these are not to be trusted nor taken as pre¬ 
cedents. A country mare crossed by a cocktail stallion may 
now and then throw a good hunter; but we shall gene¬ 
rally find that such cocktails are as nearly thorough-bred as 
possible, and, after all, it is safer to keep to the genuine 
article. I cannot here but congratulate the council of the 
society on the wording of their conditions for this class, as 
not admitting of the qualification of a half-bred horse to get 
good hunters, or even clever fashionable hacks. When, cer¬ 
tainly, we see a fine powerful three-parts-bred horse, with 
plenty of substance and style about him, a good head, fine 
shoulders, clean hocks, and so forth, we feel willing enough 
to have a few more like him. But in this case we have a 
very forcible illustration of the fallacy of a proverb, for 
like does not get like.^^ Put the clever three-parts-bred 
stallion to the equally clever three-parts-bred mare, and can 
we do so with the assurance that they will reproduce anj^- 
thing as good as themselves? Most decidedly not. The 
great point, the very foundation of the personal excellence of 
the animal we have before us, centres on his being by a 
thorough-bred horse—a recommendation of which his own 
stock in turn would be as signally wanting. Nothing can 
be finer, as the experience of our last Christmas shows went 
to prove, than the first cross between the shorthorn bull and 
the Aberdeen cow; but what would be the result of crossing 
these crosses ? Disappointment, uncertainty, and a thorough 
sacrifice of all purity of type, either from one breed or the 
other. A man who went on in this way for generations 
might eventually do something towards establishing a new 
variety of breed; but this, with such sorts as the shorthorn 
and polled, already at our hand, would be scarcely worth the 
time and trouble; and I am not very sanguine of any enter¬ 
prising individual inventing a better material for making a 
hunter than he can get direct from the thorough-bred horse. 
What are the three great essentials of the modern hunter 
but speed, power, and courage ?—and Avhere shall we get these 
but direct from the thorough-bred sire? There is nothing 
