56 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Jory, 1898. 
Horse-breeding,, 
CROSS-BREEDING. 
By “ARAB.” 
Tue superiority of the English thoroughbred over the horses of every country, 
not even excepting Arabia, cannot be questioned. He is true Arab, and 
generous treatment has made him as superior to the parent-stock of Arabia as 
we may suppose Solomon’s stock to have been to the parent Egyptian stock. 
Arabia never formed nor improved the type of horse for which it hag 
become famous ; but its conservative, unprogressive customs, which are to-day 
just what they were in the days of Abraham, has served as a conservatory 
for the type which the Egyptians evolved and Solomon perfected and fixed. 
When Israel‘and Egypt were conquered and laid desolate by the conquering 
armies of other powers—which, judging from more recent history of nations, 
is adverse and ruinous to improvement in horse-breeding, the conquerors 
invariably seizing the best stamps, as was the case in Ireland, also in modern 
Egypt—this type of horse found in Arabia a home and shelter where it was 
conserved in absolute purity, though it may have run down in size from what 
it had been in the war chariots of Egypt and Soloinon under a more generous 
system of feeding. Under generous treatment and better fare, the Arab 
rapidly increases in size—instance the English thoroughbred. There is every 
reason to belicve that had the English thoroughbred been selected and 
specialised for size and power during the same period that he has been selected 
and specialised for speed, the English people would have had a horse as superior 
to the Clydesdale for draught as the Clydesdale is to the draughts’ of the 
ancient type of straight formation. 
Englishmen are very far from having clear or correct ideas on the horse. 
I have no doubt this will not be credited by mary Englishmen; still it is a fact 
well known to Scotch judges of the horse. 
It has kept the horses of England unimproved, and has had a most 
harmful effect on our Australian stock of horses. 
In Australia we find that, wherever English ideas on the horse have 
prevailed, the horses other than thoroughbreds are of a very low order. In 
New South Wales and Queensland, English horse notions have prevailed, and 
in those colonies we find a very poor style of draught and useful horses. 
In Victoria and New Zealand, Scotch ideas led, and we have quite a superior 
class of horse. 
To “Scotch Jock,” a real enthusiast and splendid judge, may be ascribed 
the credit of the superiority of the Victorian and New Zealand horses. His 
enthusiasm acted on others; and in Victoria, in the boom times of the early 
fifties, “Scotch Jock’? was kept at work importing from Tasmania and New 
South Wales their best stamps, and the best of Clydesdales from Scotland he 
also imported. This resulted in a very superior class of horse being raised in 
Victoria. In 1869 a Victorian mare took the first prize at Warwick show ; 
she would have been a credit to the Highland Agricultural Society’s show 
grounds. It was then I received my first impression of the harmful effects of 
crossing the straight formation on the oblique. The foal at her foot, though a 
ereat well-grown youngster, was a wretched mongrel. He was sired by 2 
Shire horse. 
