468 
A. A. HOLCOMBE. 
Of course many good horses enter the service, no matter who 
does the inspecting, and we consequently find a very fair per cent 
age of them in the cavalry service that have reached a good age. 
I have seen quite a number from fifteen to twenty-five years old, 
and it is not unreasonable to infer that the majority of them have 
been in the service anywhere from five to fifteen years or more. 
Is it not possible to greatly increase the percentage, in the army, 
of these horses of long service? If it is to be accomplished at all, 
it will be through the employment of professional inspectors. 
Unlike the laity, the veterinary surgeon looks beyond the beauty 
of outline, which is too often the only recommendation an animal 
has, for those qualities upon which the serviceability must de¬ 
pend, On the other hand the smooth, round-built handsome-ap- 
pearing animal is the one that mostly commends itself in the 
eyes of the inspector unacquainted with animal diseases. 
I do not know if others have made the observation, but in the 
inspection I have made the handsome animals are the ones most 
likely to prove, on a close inspection, either diseased or so de¬ 
fective in local conformation as to demand their rejection. 
It is the handsome horses of the service which are generally 
the first to leave it; the old ones in service have had other quali¬ 
ties which secured their retention. 
The amount of money yearly appropriated by Congress for 
the purchase of cavalry and artillery horses is $200,000. The 
average price paid for horses during the past two years has been 
$130 per head. The sutn appropriated would therefore purchase 
about 1,500 horses. In the cavalry and artillery, taken together, 
there are about 7,000 public horses. It seems necessary then, to 
replace about 21 per cent, of the horses of the service yearly. 
Now, when it is considered that the light artillery has but little 
active duty to perform in time of peace, and that only a portion 
of the cavalry does campaign duty each year, the percentages of 
loss are certainly heavy. The yearly loss from death and usual 
wear and tear of the service, of companies not in the field, ought 
not to exceed on an average, with proper veterinary medical at¬ 
tendance, 5 per cent. If this estimate be true, and but half of 
the cavalry do field duty each year, the yearly losses to this part 
of the cavalry reach 37 per cent. But even the average loss to 
