Thus it will be seen that with liberal diet a mare may be kept in the ordinary way for the sum of 15l. per annum inclusive of good attendance.

The cost of foals will be nearly the same until they enter the training stable, and I consider from experience that about 301. will clear both the mare and foal's expenses through the twelve months; and if we take 25 guineas as the average charge for the use of firstclass stallions, we shall have a total of 55l. on the yearling's head at the time he is offered for sale or enters the training stable.

It is commonly asserted that to render breeding remunerative, yearlings should average at least 100gs. per head; still I think breeders might justly be content with some 251. per head under this, unless the mares had been very high priced indeed.

The public, however, are very variable in matters of horse-flesh, and unless certain strains become fashionable, very low prices are obtained. It should always be remembered that although no animal commands so high a price as the thorough-bred colt if of high character, no animal is so valueless as the reverse. Therefore it stands to reason that a breeder must go for

JUDGMENT OF THE FRENCH.

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first-rate blood in both stallion and mare, or else leave breeding alone altogether. The market never flags (thanks to foreigners) for really good animals, and the latter have become such good judges that they will not only have blood and performances, but great size and power in addition, for their money.

Indeed, it appears to me that Frenchmen go more for a class of animal we should think best adapted for steeplechasing, if one is to judge by their stables, the prominent in which has been Cosmopolite, by Lanercost (who should have been left entire but for his light neck), than whom we have many a worse 2000l. customer at the stud.

It is far from improbable that ere long we shall have reason to wish we had gone on the same principles.

Thus it seems that size and power do represent money value after all. At any sale of yearlings the great upstanding furnished animals always make the most money, unless there chance to be a remarkably fashionably-bred one among the smaller division.

There are certain defects which I should not be inclined to pass over in either horse or mare, but if especially partial to either a mare or stallion with a serious defect, I should endeavour to counteract it to the best of my ability.

Many good horses have crooked fore legs, toes pointed out or in, &c., but in either case I should pause before breeding from such animals; but if determined to do so, I should look far and wide for the best and straightest legged partner I could find.

Thus the failing might be modified in the progeny, and a racehorse might be the result; but if careless on this point the offspring might, and most likely would, be well-nigh deformed and useless.

I utterly deprecate the system so ruinously adopted by many, of breeding from animals merely because they were good. If we consider the essential qualifications of a racehorse, we must see that an animal may be extraordinarily gifted in certain peculiarities: as temper, handiness, immense nervous action, and indomitable courage. These then may, and often do, outweigh some grievous defects in conformation; but unless we can be sure of such peculiarities being handed down to their progeny in equal ratio, we ought not to regard them more highly than their worth.

For this reason, I say that Bay Middleton and the Flying Dutchman, &c., have proved decided failures at the stud; yet no one will deny, I imagine, that they themselves were quite unsurpassed as racehorses.

To sum up then, I like a very long, low, and rather loosely built mare, in opposition to a compact closely ribbed up animal. They generally throw finer and more racing like foals, although Crucifix and Beeswing come in as the exceptions.

This is the only point on which I think the stallion should differ from the mare. He cannot be too compactly set, so long as he has freedom and length.

February is the best time to put the mare to the horse; and if only just out of training, she should have a dose of physic and cooling diet; and if then she

shows no symptoms of being stinted, a few quarts of blood as a last resource should be taken.

She should on no account be allowed to see the . horse again under three weeks, for I am convinced that many mares are rendered barren from the foolish notion of allowing the mare to see the stallion frequently, to ascertain whether she be really stinted. Some animals get so irritated by such excitement, that they rarely prove in foal.

The food should be cooling for another ten weeks from this point, when the sooner the mare is put to grass the better. Of all things it is desirable to avoid cooping mares up in sheds and yards in the day-time. Exercise is always necessary for the proper function of the digestive organs, and not more than six mares should be put together in one field, which should consist of at least ten acres.

Nothing renders animals so liable to mange, dropsy, water farcy, worms, &c., as a want of sufficient space for exercise. The secretions of the whole system become morbid, or, at best, enfeebled and inactive; which state of things is not very likely to render the process of foaling, when the time comes, more easy.

If any symptoms of the kind are apparent, rub the body with a mixture of sulphur and oil of turpentine, and give internally linseed gruel with half a drachm of iodide of potassium daily to increase the action of the absorbents, and continue this for a week. The mare cannot be left too much to herself when foaling,

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taking care that no dangerous place is at hand, such as a deep muddy ditch, pit, or the like; for to such places mares invariably turn when their labours commence. Immediately after foaling the mare should be removed, together with the foal, to a well-littered roomy box, and have moist bran and beans, with a large supply of water always at hand, and all other liberal, but not heating diet. If the mare should be very weak, there is no better food than bean flour, linseed gruel, and old ale, given warm. If she prove an indifferent milker, which can be readily ascertained by the colt not filling himself, the best new milk should be given after the foal has dried its dam, and a soda water bottle will prove the most convenient feeder for this purpose.

After a little perseverance, a colt will drink milk as fast as a calf, and the future of a colt need in no way be despaired of, either because it had a bad mother or even if its mother die. The very names of Cade, Milksop, and last and not least the gallant little Saucebox, almost make one wish many a colt were motherless! But, whether with a mother or without, the foal must have sufficient nourishment, or it will never come to early maturity; and I cannot deprecate the absurd notion too strongly, that a colt should be left to itself. Left to itself, forsooth, when it represents a debt to us of something like 401., putting aside the loss of an object of one's wishes for the last twelve months!

Still, monstrous as this may seem, we daily hear men give vent to such a pitiable and imbecile thesis. Indeed, I am acquainted with one gentleman who goes to the