OVER AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
537 
or three times the latter earns a reputation* and is set up as a 
sire to fill the paddocks with weeds* the worst specimens of 
which are given away or sold for a trifle, and led about the 
country to serve half-bred mares* at low r prices, to the exclu¬ 
sion of better horses* and thus inundate us with wretches far 
worse than himself. Let it not for a moment be supposed that 
I assert we have no valuable blood horses, there are very many 
now superior and infinitely more valuable than the horses of 
twenty years back, but the demand for their services is so 
great and the prices so high, (even up to one hundred 
guineas the mare*) that they are unavailable except to the 
breeders of blood stock. Another cause of the scarcity of 
superior blood horses is the great number that are annually 
sold to go abroad, and the sorts selected are just the sort we 
should not permit to leave the country. The foreign agents 
are well up to their business, and make their selections from 
purity of blood* size* symmetry, colour and action ; knowing 
well that the true superiority of the animal depends on these 
qualifications, and not in the mistaken idea of his having 
won a race or two. Steeple chasing was intended to stimu¬ 
late the improvement in breeding, but handicapping has here 
also done the work of destruction. The deterioration in the 
cart or heavy draught horse I attribute principally to the 
very great demand there was for them twenty to twenty-five 
years ago* whilst the country was being cut up in railway 
making: the prices then given were so very high, and conse¬ 
quently tempting* that breeders, after selling all their extra 
stock, were induced to sell their best breeding mares and 
sires, and buying in their places inferior animals, and breed¬ 
ing from them; nothing could be more suicidal than this* 
nevertheless it is a fact much to be regretted. Another and 
a very prolific cause of deterioration is giving prizes at agri¬ 
cultural shows for what are called agricultural stallions—a 
class of animals which cannot be too strongly denounced as 
highly prejudicial to the breed of cart horses. I do not 
object to breeding this class of horses* but I protest against 
breeding from them. The colts should all be castrated; 
they will then be useful animals, and readily sold for good 
prices, for service in the lighter kinds of draught work. The 
objection by no means applies to mares of this class; they 
are just what we want in this and the adjacent counties* 
where all the land* in its turn, is worked and cropped. They 
are large, roomy, powerful* and quick* and the sort to work 
easily to themselves, and profitably to their owners, and at 
the same time to breed a colt that will grow up into an 
animal of great value for city and town draught work. My 
xxxvii. 35 
