536 
OYER AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
tinue to increase. The application of steam in agricultural 
operations does not, nor can it ever, limit the usefulness of 
the horse, for though the steam plough and thrashing 
machine came to his relief, and the development of scientific 
knowledge as applied to agriculture rendered this a matter of 
necessarv aid to, and not a substitute for horse labour. Our 
increasing commercial and manufacturing cities and towns 
require a corresponding increase in the number of working 
draught horses; the streets are, in like manner, daily more 
thronged with omnibuses and every other description of 
public vehicles: professional men and tradesmen, too, are 
bound to keep horses, in fact in these go-a-head times no one 
that has any extensive out-door occupation can get along 
without a horse. The demand for remounts for the army is 
on the increase, and must continue to increase. We now 
turn to the pleasure horse, the first and most important of 
which is the racer, or thorough blood horse; and a reference 
to the number of breeding establishments and to the adver¬ 
tisements of our race meetings, the number of prizes and 
horses entered to contend for them, shows a rapid and extra- 
ordinarv increase. The hunter next demands our notice, our 
hunting fields are larger every season, and the number of red 
coats, up and eager for this truly British sport seems almost 
without limit. Our parks and public thoroughfares testify 
beyond a doubt to the rapid increase in the number of car¬ 
riage horses, pads and hacks of all sorts and denominations 
from the royal state carriage horse, down to the chihks pony. 
With these facts before us, can we have any doubt of the 
importance to the agriculturist of horse breeding, and of the 
desirability of his giving his attention to it, giving to it that 
mature thought and consideration it so justly merits? We 
are in truth bound to admit that in style and action, and in 
form for general purposes, the breed of horses has degene¬ 
rated. The cause of this I mainly attribute to the altered 
and highly improper system of racing, for I need scarcely 
tell you that all classes of horses, except the cart horse should 
emanate from the thorough blood horse. Instead of long 
courses and heavy weights for age being, as formerly, the 
rule of racing, requiring in the horse high courage, strong 
and symmetrical form and mature age to bring him success¬ 
fully to the goal, now the races, as a rule, are short, and for 
two and three year olds and weights handicapped, thus 
bringing on an equality good, middling, and bad horses, 
reducing it to a matter of chance whether the valuable 
animal, carrying nine stone, is beaten by a weedy brute with 
five stone seven pounds on his back ; and by doing this two 
