558 HORSE BUYING AND BREEDING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
I have never seen animals looking better than Mr. Southey’s mares. 
Out on the veldt the whole vear, with nothing whatever to eat but 
the Karroo herbage, they foal without assistance in the open air, and 
loss from this cause is practically unknown. I saw two foals, just born, 
trotting after their mother and both parents and offspring looked as 
well as possible. Here there is certainly no deterioration in the native 
born stock, several of the Colonial mares being bigger and better than 
their English mothers. 
One instance is Mrs. Veal, a small chestnut by Robert the Devil out 
of Cipolina, by Macaroni, which Mr. Southey bought at the Hampton 
stud sale about 20 years ago> during which time she has brought her 
fortunate owner a clear £ 2,000 in stock. She is a mare which I 
should have hesitated to take any distance to breed from, so small is 
she, but her stock have nearly all been much bigger than herself. 
One, May Queen, which we saw with a foal at foot by Pearl Diver is 
a beautiful mare. 
Another fine matron which we saw at Culmstock was Pauline by 
Paul (a brother of the ill-tempered Peter). This last is a most taking 
mare, and looks like breeding a weight carrying hunter, yet showing 
lots of quality. Of course Mr. Southey does his young stock well and 
gives them plenty of corn. He has a yearling by Pearl Diver out of 
Mrs. Veal, which ought to do something on the turf here one of these 
days. 
From what I saw on this farm, it is clear to me that, given proper 
care, there is no reason why animals should not be produced in this 
country as large and as stout as in England. Doubtless, for some 
years to come, to prevent in-breeding, fresh blood would have to be 
introduced from home, and of course care would have to be taken in 
selecting a farm, to get one on which the soil contained a sufficiency of 
bone forming lime. Given a proper supply of water, which an enter¬ 
prising farmer obtains by means of dams, the climatic conditions are 
all in favour of horse-breeding and we hope that the day is not far 
distant when means will be discovered of defeating the horse sickness 
microbe. 
Good land, accessible to water, can be bought at £1 an acre, so» 
that unlimited space can be cheaply obtained on which theories of 
breeding, which are out of reach of any but millionaires in England, 
can be worked out in South Africa. 
In the Colony or Free State I found however no trace of any sys¬ 
tematic breding except that of blood stock. 
The De Beers Company at Kimberley with boundless space and 
unlimited capital at their disposal breed without any apparent method. 
At their stud farm we saw a Cleveland bay, an American trotter, 
three hackneys and three Arabs and a thoroughbred son of Donovan— 
Oakdene, which beyond the fact that he ran fourth in the Derby had 
nothing to recommend him as a sire. 
As far as we could gather, these horses are mated indiscriminately 
with the native mares without any special care or selection. On Dutch 
farms we visited, owned by men of wealth and intelligence, the same 
apparent want of method existed. On one in particular near Coles- 
