RECAPITULATION.
Preserve the Percheron race as pure as possible from all mixture not perfectly homogeneous; respect all its varieties due to the districts where they have been bred and raised; improve by crossing the best types of the country, and in such a manner as to correct defects, while preserving intact qualities and character.
If it be necessary to give more style to the action, and more richness to the blood, ask these qualities of the Arab, which has the privilege of imparting style and tone, while preserving weight, hardihood, vigor, and docility. The Arabian is kind, intelligent, reliable, laborious, and easily kept.
If, in obedience to urgent considerations, and in the absence of oriental horses, it becomes necessary to have recourse to English blood, choose quarter-bred stallions—at the most half-bred—but of an ancient race, and well-confirmed, with a well-opened and expressive eye, fine action, high spirit, and especially a total absence of irritability, and with all the appearances of honesty and aptitude for work.
For the innate defects of the English, generally impressible, susceptible, and unintelligent, cannot be too carefully guarded against. Delicate, a great eater, and requiring great care, he must, if honest, be well worked; if not, he pays ill his cost, and robs the hand which nourishes him. He should always be selected from a working family, and be himself a free worker. He who wishes to embark in horse-breeding will avoid more than one shoal by observing these simple considerations.
The delicate English horse, fond of his manger, bearing but little continuous and monotonous work, requiring of those that have charge of him tact, mildness, and an advanced equestrian education, is the horse of the rich man, and the man of pleasure, of the lover of the turf and chase, and of the wealthy farmer, who looks more to the beauty of his stock than to the quantity of its work.
The Arabian, sober, energetic, and laborious, is the horse for the small proprietor, the soldier, and the laborer. He is the wealth of the poorer and less improved countries.
The draft-horse is only suited to the farmer, and his size should be adapted not only to the district in which he is to be used, but also to the standard of cultivation of the country, and to the means of the person requiring his services. He may be improved, may be a trotter, and may be more stylish, but should always be adapted to the means of the breeder, and to the richness of the country. A large and fine animal would only vegetate in the hands of a person whose land is scarcely sufficient to support his family. He should only be owned by the wealthy farmer. And, on the other side, the latter should never raise his eyes to the blood horse, which should be left to those who have been a long time accustomed to the risks inseparable from his breeding and training.
A final word will make my thoughts better understood.
I desire to speak of the financial question, which is every thing in breeding and in agriculture. The best and the only manner of considering this is to compare the breeder at the start, at the beginning of his career, and when his career is ended, to verify the results. This operation is nothing short of a settlement of accounts.
In my travels I became acquainted with two neighboring districts. One was rich, fertile, and productive, eminently suited to breeding superior fancy horses. But they were poorly raised therein; the farmers disdained rearing horses suited to the soil, and the horses they did breed, already bad from the very start, were raised in idleness, and poorly fed, on account of their earning nothing. The other district was poor, and the soil produced only what could be wrested from it by force. However, by dint of labor, agriculture flourished. The horse, chosen with care, suited the country, worked well, and all prospered.
The fancy struck me, to compare the settlements of estates in these two districts, and here are the results of this examination:
In the first district, the breeders all commenced and entered upon their career with capital. Notwithstanding this, 18 out of 20 died over head and ears in debt.
In the second, they were almost all former servants or farm hands, possessing only their savings, with which to establish themselves. In spite of these difficult beginnings, 17 out of 20 left fortunes to their children, who, the reverse of the children of the former, were early accustomed to labor and to a regular life. It is useless to say that in these examples I always excepted the cases where trade, to carry on its business, sheltered itself under the cloak of the breeder; for this does not constitute breeding any more than the trade in bread-stuffs carried on in a farm-house constitutes agriculture.
Finally I would call the attention of the Percheron farmer to two suggestions. Suppose the supply of horses from the departments of Orne, Eure and Loir, Loir and Cher, Eure and Sarthe, and from the district of Mortagne, now amounting to about sixty thousand head, should outrun the demand of the omnibuses and wagons; the remedy for this would be to aim at greater style and beauty, at the same time preserving the qualities required by the omnibuses and express companies. We would thus create another outlet for our stock, through the demands of the dealers in fancy horses, and the consumption of the army, and bring the Percheron race very near to perfection.
No disappointment need be feared in crossing the Percheron with a foreign stallion, either a heavy Arabian, a strong, well-bred Merlerault, or a dark colored Norfolk, on the express condition that this stallion should be selected with care, and be of the best stock of his breed. The Arabian can be placed everywhere, both on poor land and in the hilly districts; where the progeny of the other stallions would not thrive, his will succeed well. The get of the Merlerault, and of the English horses especially, require the most fertile and the best cultivated districts.
If the results of these crossings, male or female, be successful, they may be well employed in breeding, and, after some generations, in the districts where breeding is carried on with care, they may become the starting point of a choice stock. Commencing with the qualities of good and substantial post-horses, the Percheron could be elevated to the dignity of the carriage-horse, and in other less fertile localities to staunch and compact hunters.
Those showing no improvement, (too many of which are met with) would find a market open to them in the trade, among the moderately rich, and in the army, especially in the artillery. The males, when castrated at an early age, would be more acceptable to the trade, and, while ceasing to dishonor the privileged class and the class destined for reproduction, could be used for numerous purposes. For the gray horse the outlets are necessarily more limited. When the omnibuses and teamsters have taken their complement of 6,000 or 7,000 horses, and when the foreigner has gathered up his 600 or 700 choice specimens, there no longer remains a sufficient demand for the second-rate stock.
As there now exist neither diligences, couriers, mail nor post-coaches, for which the gray Percheron was formerly required for the night road service, there is no longer any imperious reason for preserving his old coat; henceforth he may be bay or dark colored. And, provided he becomes so by the aid of a dark-coated Arabian, or a heavy, well-bred Merlerault, or by a fine specimen of a Norfolk, the type of his race, I see therein no inconvenience.
When steam machines, to supply the hands which are wanting, will plow our fields and perform the hardest work, we will have no longer to regret that our Percheron laborers have not the gray color which possessed the property of turning the scorching rays of the sun. One of our greatest writers, one of our lights in equestrian science, has, however, written:
“The use of stallions of mixed blood, borrowed from foreign races, left but regrets in Perche. It has produced vices of disposition and blemishes which did not belong to the Percheron horse, and has given him in exchange no good quality. It has disturbed the structure of the progeny without any gain in form or endurance.”
Notwithstanding all my respect for this high authority, let me be allowed to ask him if he has ever seen the progeny, too rare it is true, of some well-chosen stallions in close affinity to Percheron blood, called Gallipoli, Sandy, and Bayard? Never did finer results gratify the pride of a breeder, never did trotters drag heavy diligences with more power and ease, and never did sons transmit more faithfully to their descendants the image and characters of their ancestors. Doubtless he was only shown the numerous and heterogeneous progeny of even the best full-blooded stallions Sylvio, Eylau, Reveller, and others by Percheron mares—crossings so surprising in their absence of affinity that I am still astonished that the thought of them ever entered a reasonable mind.
When in the absence of stallions of our own, such as we wish, I advise the use of foreign ones, I do not give this counsel blindly, but, select the types appearing to me the best adapted to the purpose, and instead of proceeding with giant strides I would pursue the work with a patient and prudent slowness.
PART III.
INFORMATION TO STRANGERS WISHING TO BUY PERCHERON HORSES.
Although I consider Perche an exceptional country for the production of good horses, I attribute to its air, to its water, and to the nutritiveness of its grasses, the admirable qualities of the animals bred therein. I am convinced that the excellent care, the wise management, exempt alike from pampering indulgence and from the harsh treatment which irritate the disposition, and from which the good teacher never departs in his intercourse with his pupils, contribute a great deal to the success of the result. Starting from this point, I think I can assert that with care and this identical management, horses can be elsewhere produced that Perche would not disown. It is, then, the recapitulation of this method and management which should be presented to the stranger desirous of raising the Percheron horse. I will tell him what the cultivator of this country does, and in doing like him, provided he make the attempt in a high, healthy district, a district with a sharp air and one often refreshed by winds, presenting some analogy to the rugged hills and the excellent grassy valleys of Perche, no doubt he will arrive at magnificent results. Several suppositions may be presented to the consideration of the stranger wishing to raise Percheron horses. Either he should buy in Perche a mare in foal, or purchase four or five months’ old colts, which he wishes to wean in his own country, or his purchases will be made of yearlings, or, finally, he will carry with him full-grown males and females, or only one or the other sex for the purpose of breeding.
Each one of these suppositions can be determined by the practical knowledge of breeding, and by the study of the methods practised in Perche, and may suggest as many chapters. But, before undertaking anything, I will ask this amateur if he really loves the horse, and if he admits the qualities needed in the Percheron breeder. If he answers in the affirmative, I will enter upon the subject. If, on the contrary, he be not sure of himself and of the agents that he is to employ, I might as well throw aside my pen and not write another word.
The disposition of the Percheron breeder towards his horses is that of a never-changing mildness; and this is why his horse is so gentle and so docile. The Percheron loves his horse, but not with an affection resembling that hearty passion, that sudden blaze of regard, too explosive to last long, of certain amateurs; he loves the horse with an hereditary love, a family love, if I may so express it, and the horse, on his side, loves him hereditarily. The women and children have generally the care of the horse while the men are in the fields. Hence the even and amiable temper of the horses raised under this system. The Percheron cultivator possesses, above all, great patience and a supreme control over himself, indispensable qualities in training young colts, which, if treated with harshness would soon lose their heads, and become infallibly nervously timid if subjected to violence and impatience. Here lies the secret of good training and the art of uniting in the horse a cool and calm temper with a decided character. He is laborious and loves to stir the soil; hence his practice of early working the colts, which renders them laborious and honest. But, as he is, above all, intelligent and loves in a rational way, he only requires of them work in proportion to their strength, and gives them good nourishment. This management, uniting work and good food, is an admirable means of giving strength, health, and a good constitution. Finally, the Percheron inhabits a broken country, where he must constantly ascend and descend. This circumstance is most favorable in giving strength and suppleness to his shoulders, haunches, and hoofs, which, by turns, work and rest in this unparalleled district.
This portrait is not only applicable to the large proprietors and to the farmers, but to all the Percheron population. There is not a man in this district who has not been a working man, who has not raised, trained, and driven colts, and who, even in his tenderest age, when he could walk and hold a little whip, has not lived among the horses and played between their legs. It requires no searching here to find a man acquainted with the horse, a good farm hand; the first face you meet with is that of an intelligent agent, and a trustworthy one in the difficult art of training colts.
If you have such men at your disposal, undertake boldly your task; but if the proper men are wanting, forbear, for you will arrive at nothing satisfactory.
CHAPTER I.
FOOD AND BREEDING.
The stallion, in the districts inhabited by mares, is, with some rare exceptions, a “rover,”—that is to say, he visits the farms at stated periods. His standing season lasts six months, from January to July, and he generally returns four times to the same place. The foal is dropped, ordinarily, very early, and always in the stable, where it constantly remains until weaning time. The dam goes to work every day, and leaves its foal each morning, to see it again only in the middle of the day, and at night. Green clover, or other green forage, is fed, to keep up her supply of milk.
At six months the colt is weaned. If it be a filly, it remains in the canton where it was foaled, to be put to breeding when it reaches the proper age. If it be a horse colt, it is sold to the farmers of the raising districts, of which we will speak in the chapter devoted to the trade.
The stock of these districts is recruited from two sources, the southern region principally, (in the vicinity of Montdoubleau and Chateaudun,) on account of the great reputation of its mares. The cultivator desirous of rearing good colts traverses these districts as early as the month of June, and makes his choice of colts from under the dams, and out of herds of established reputation. This manner of selecting stock to raise is the most logical, as also the most expensive. It is much in favor with the farmer carrying on a large business, in the neighborhood of Mauves and Regmalard. Some cultivators of the other cantons follow his example; but not so rich as he, they have but the second choice.
The second source, and the most abundant, is the purchase of gang colts—that is to say, those which, in Perche, have not been sold during the summer; but principally those from the neighborhood of Coulie, to the north-west of Maus, and those of Lower Maine. They are brought, entirely weaned, to the fairs of Perche about the end of autumn. St. Andrew’s fair at Mortagne offers a curious specimen of this operation. The farmers select from the gangs. The origin, in this case, is no longer of any account; there is neither sire nor dam to weigh down the scales; the merit is all exterior—of the individual. If this way of buying be not so dear, it is likewise not so sure, unless the purchaser be acquainted with honest dealers, accustomed to bring in only good colts.
There is but little trouble taken in weaning the colts. This passage from one period of life to another, always so serious with thoroughbred colts, takes place quite simply with the future field laborers. They wean themselves in the trip from their birthplace to their new destination. The farmers in the neighborhood of Regmalard, who ordinarily buy them very young, give a little cow’s milk on their arrival, to strengthen them, and to serve as a transition; but even this method is far from universal.
The colts, when they come upon the farms, are put five or six together, pell-mell, into an indifferently ventilated stable, which receives its light through a lattice door. Their nourishment consists of a very thin mush, made of barley flour and bran, frequently renewed. The solid portion of their food is composed of dry clover and hay, with which their cribs are regularly filled.
Some farmers feed aftermath, which is sweeter; but as this is apt to load the stomach, in order to render it more easily digested, it is mixed with oat-straw.
It is very rare that these colts, changed from one district to another, often making long stages, and exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, are not attacked with strangles. Many raisers at this period have the pernicious habit of giving them some kind of grain, in order to warm them up, and cause them to throw off the disease. But this food has the fault of thickening the blood too much, and exposes them to numerous ailments.
This diet is continued until the spring, at which time the colts are given green fodder in the stable. Later, they are turned into the clover fields after the first cut, or into the meadows after they are mowed.
At eighteen months they commence their apprenticeship; passing their necks through the collar, they are harnessed to plows or wagons with horses already broken, although of an age at which, in many countries, their equals are as yet ignorant of all labor. The food, composed of clover principally, hay, millet straw, corn salad, (Feticus,) and cracked rye, baked in loaves, becomes from this time forth, a little more nourishing. They also commence to eat oats, but as yet, sparingly. This is not given them pure, but with the chaff—that is to say, it is not winnowed. The quantity of this food used by day is not less than to 1½ to 1¾ gallons, yielding not much more than ⅓ of a gallon of oats. On the other hand, the meal and the mush are increased, to give them body and strength. At thirty months old they are still kept upon this food, in the midst of all the farm work, which they daily perform (with, however, a great deal of moderation), and in dragging very light burdens; for, truly, it is but a training, to confirm the hereditary mildness of their character, and to teach them, little by little, to become willing and fearless.
In the meanwhile the dealer, who roams constantly about among the farms, arrives. He buys and resells immediately to the farmers of Little Perche and Thimerais. More stimulating feed is given them, in consequence of more constant and harder work. This life lasts a year, and is terminated by the passage into Beauce, or the Chartres country, where their work is again increased. With the work the feed increases, and this combination leads to the perfection of the horse.
It is at this time that the horses, having attained their maturity, and the maximum of their strength, are bought for Paris, whither they are called by relentless labor, which they are enabled to endure by their unconquerable will, great muscular force, energy, and courage.
“This mode of training,” to borrow the words of a noted breeder, “represents the division of labor, which gives such happy results in the manufactories, and its advantages cannot be well appreciated, except by those who, having raised horses, know what embarrassment an assemblage of colts of all sizes and ages produces. Unfortunately it would be very difficult to introduce this excellent custom elsewhere, which has probably existed for ages in Perche without the knowledge of its source.”
The colts destined for breeding are generally devoted to this purpose at the age of two years, and continue, on an average, until they have attained the age of four. I speak of Little Perche, for in Great Perche, since the foundation of the Equestrian Society, the seat of which is at Chateaudun, and which extends its action to quite a distance, the covering is done by adult stallions. At four, they are sold either to Paris, or to foreigners, should their merit render them worthy of such a choice.
This total emigration of the male colts at the age of six months, renders it very difficult to procure good stallions of this breed. From Great Perche they are scattered among the trade, often before the age of a sure selection. When they are sought after in Perche, they are no longer to be found; they must then be followed and hunted up on the Beauce farms, and this pursuit is extremely difficult. It, however, offers greater chances of success than the Chartres market, where the greatest number of mature Percheron horses are to be found.
As for the fillies, their experience is the same as that of the colts, with this single difference that their life is exempt from migration. They are raised in the region in which they are foaled. They work from a very early period, bear two or three colts, and then disappear, like the males, in the vortex of consumption. For, beyond some exceptional cases and remarkable productions, it is rare that they grow old upon the farm. The farmer, in order to lose nothing of their value, sends them off at the age of five, six, and seven years. It would be a happy thing, as we have already said, if sufficient inducements in the way of prizes could be offered to retain the fine breeding mares upon the soil, and put an end to this custom, so inimical to progress.
The farmers who have pasture grounds, as in the environs of Regmalard, make use of them for raising their colts, as is done in Merlerault and in the Auge Valley. Instead of letting them loose in the fields, they are sent to pasture.
The hay of the valleys is good, but insufficient for the supply of the farms; the deficit is made up by the use of artificial fodders, in which clover enters for three-quarters; the remainder is composed of fenugreek, lucern, and some roots. Millet, or barley and oat straw are also given as food, and in certain cantons they are stacked in alternate layers with the meadow grass, in order to give them the odor and fragrance of hay—an ingenious method of making an unattractive food acceptable.
The stables, although much better than formerly, in the good old times of the race, still leave a great deal to be desired. They are not furnished with stalls, but the horses are tied alongside of one another without any separation. But such is the gentleness of character of this breed that an accident was never heard of.
The whole of the management which we have just described has a marked tendency towards constantly enlarging the horse at the expense of his nervous system.
This diet, completely out of place in a mild, grain producing country, has reason for existing in Perche, and the Percheron cultivator knows too well what he does in employing it, not to have understood this. The climate and the products of Perche, the air and the water, affect too exclusively the nervous system not to require being constantly combatted.
For this I desire to take an example in the whole animal kingdom stocking this country. Everybody to-day well knows the influence of climate upon animals. No one now any longer doubts that it is to the sharp and healthy air of the Percheron country, to its elevated hills, and to its atmosphere constantly renewed by the powerful ventilators of its valleys and forests, that this country owes the eminent qualities of its fine race of horses, which has won for it the right of displaying this significant title: “Perche, the land of good horses.” Everything surrounding us inclines us to adopt this opinion. The domestic animals brought here are transformed in a short time by the contact of the air breathed and the nourishment furnished. The marked types of the Billot and Crêvecœur fowls are no sooner brought here than at the first generation a total change is effected in their looks. From the second generation it is difficult to recognize them in the thin, lean, and nervously formed fowl, with a wild look, and always ready to take wing.
The bovine race of Perche is also far inferior to the improved race. It is the opposite of the kind prized nowadays, the race which is mild, lymphatic, and short-legged, always inclined to fat, and having in its bony frame only just enough to serve it for its locomotion, forming a quadrilateral of flesh, mounted on four small legs, a rump bending with its haunches, a broad, smooth back, and a low brisket. Its horns, which are seemingly useless in a country from which man has driven out the wild beasts, fall overlapping one another, like a useless ornament, upon the head.
Such is not the Percheron breed of cattle; on the contrary it is dry and bony, of a nervous temperament, long legs, angular haunches, contracted chest, lank thigh, and thin neck, with a long, thin head. Two long horns of a greenish-white stand up in the air, always threatening as in a savage country, infested with dangerous animals. An expressive word designates them fully: a cattle dealer will tell you they are “staggy,” and will pass on without bestowing upon them a glance. They are hardly fit for quick fattening, and are recognized without trouble by their color, which in terms of the trade is said to be “a little weak,” and by their skin, which is dry and harsh. The dealers appropriately express their condition by “no good points.” The bulls, especially, are tough, with big horns, bony limbs, large joints, an ugly head, and the whole difficult to fatten, which well entitles them to the full application of the epithet “boorish beasts,” invented to express animals of inferior quality.
It is in vain that Maine, the district which joins it, has given to Perche its race of cattle; they have degenerated, have become taller, lanker, less easy to fatten, and have preserved no trace of the fine head and the good fore-quarters that are to be found in Maine. In vain has Normandy poured out a generous blood. The Norman type hardly appears; it is degenerated and entirely loses the agreeable color, fine head, good limbs, white horns, and other good points.
For several years, the fashion of crossing with the Cotentin race has become universal, and continues to make rapid progress. From the second generation, nevertheless, there remains almost nothing in the conformation and in the quality of the stock to show the cross. It is only by dint of always crossing with the Cotentin that Perche has been able to make for itself her present passable stock.
The sheep, sufficiently delicate for the table, are small, and form a degenerate and nameless mixture of the breeds of Maine, Caux, and Trennes, crossed for several years back with the Merino. They present the same conditions as the horned animals. Like them, they are difficult to fatten and are not lymphatic, notwithstanding the frequent importations of the heavier and fleshier breeds.
Such predispositions can only come from the soil, and the constant sway of the nervous over the lymphatic system produces all the qualities of the Percheron horse. This is why tradition has painted such a seductive picture of his construction and qualities. This is why the old inhabitants, who had seen that fine breed before its degeneration, speak of it with so much warmth. This is why, notwithstanding the incredible crossings, it has withstood such mixtures. And this is why it is always energetic, in spite of the diluted nourishment without tonic properties which is given it, and which would be enough to bastardize a race with characteristics less fixed and permanent.
Let us, however, beware of utterly condemning the management of the breeders, and let us not entangle, with an imprudent hand, the threads of his traditions. The horse is his sole fortune, and in the raising of this aid of his agricultural labors, he gains to-day his livelihood. His management has a fixed end to which he always tends with an incredible perseverance, and that is to increase the size of his horses without prejudice to their good qualities.
Now that the country is covered with excellent roads and highways; that railways have accustomed us to great speed; that diligences and mail-coaches are forever gone; that the stylish carriage horse, the hunter, and the half-blood, have reached great perfection, the role of the Percheron is completely changed. He is no longer the hunter, the saddle-horse, nor the motive power of heavy wagons over new and broken roads; he remains exclusively both the quick and mettlesome draft-horse, and the heavy burden and express wagon horse. He must possess superior strength, speed, docility, temper, and honesty, and a complete absence of irritability. It is for this reason that after having listened to enthusiastic advisers, and allowed himself to be led astray by men too eager to enjoy the result of their ideas, he to-day is no longer to be cajoled by the solicitations of the amateurs of foreign blood. The Percheron cultivator does not wish even a single drop of it, and exerts himself exclusively in producing heavy horses. Encouraged in this way by the dealers of all countries, paying excessively high prices for the big and heavy Percheron horse, while leaving upon his hands, without the offer of a farthing, the horse in which a few drops of “blood” can be perceived, he has spread his sails and stretched them boldly to catch the breeze of the day.
We shall carefully avoid following the example of numerous famous doctors, the display of our little bundle of receipts. Let it be, however, permitted us to touch again slightly upon the question in expressing the fear that, should he not take care, the breeder of heavy horses will in the end render them too heavy and weighty. Stallions having a small touch of blood, well applied, and sufficiently latent not to excite mistrust, having action, good limbs, strong loins, and deep chest, are indispensable for warming up the Percheron blood and giving it tone. Look at Sandy, and afterwards at Collin, Bayard, and some others whose influence was immense. Their progeny, magnificent in every respect, did not show too much blood in their exterior, but revealed it vigorously by action and high spirit. The crosses which have best succeeded with the Percheron are undoubtedly, as shown by numerous examples, those derived themselves from an oriental cross. This fact, which clearly proves that the Percheron race has a great affinity with the race of the desert, should not be neglected in foreign alliances.
As for the English alliances, these have not given as yet all the results promised; but from this nothing must be inferred against new trials. Too much blood had constantly been used, and consequently the end was missed by wishing to proceed too rapidly.
Little blood, at first, but blood well chosen, from the Norfolk race, blood patiently infused into Percheron veins, is the means of triumphing over old prejudices and opening to this country an extensive and successful future.
KATE.—MARE.
CHAPTER II.
TRADE.—GLANCE AT THE MOST CELEBRATED BREEDING PLACES.
The good horses are generally bought upon the farms, and among these the dealers are constantly roaming. The trade of the whole of France, and the numerous and intelligent amateurs from abroad, visit them carefully, beating the country and searching it in all its farthest corners. Still, notwithstanding the purchases there made, the fairs are not wanting in numerous and good animals. We will, like these strangers, run over the best breeding places.
As an equine country, “Perche, the land of good horses,” is divided into three very distinct districts.
That in which the colts are foaled—stocked exclusively with mares and fillies;
The district in which the male colts are weaned and raised;
And that in which they are brought to perfection—a privilege which it shares with Beauce and the Chartres country which it bounds.
All the territory north, west, and south, of the district of Mortagne (Orne) comprising the cantons of Moulins, Bazoche, Pervenchères, Bellesme, Theil, and part of Nocé, possesses breeding mares as well as fillies. In Sarthe, the canton of Montmirail; those of Montdoubleau and Droué in Loir-and-Cher; those of Alluye, Bazoche, Cloyes, Authon, Brou, and Nogent-le-Rotrou, in Eure-and-Loir, are likewise centers where only fillies and breeding mares are to be met with. Courtalain, on the south border, is also celebrated for this specialty.
The raising of male-colts occupies all the east, center, and north of the district of Mortagne—that is to say, the cantons of Mortagne, Tourouvre, Lougny, Regmalard, and part of Nocé. This division, however, is not always distinctly marked upon the borders. The parishes upon the confines of each district, such as Bazoches, Courgeoust, Pin, Saint-Ouen, Nocé, Berdluis, etc., have farms stocked exclusively with fillies, whilst others possess only stallion colts.
The region for the mares is itself divided into two cantons: that of the north and that of the south. The southern is the most renowned, inasmuch as its mares pass for having retained the characters of the old Percheron race more closely. It comprises the cantons outside the district of Mortagne. Montdoubleau is the capital.
The northern, enclosed in the district of Mortagne, counts three very distinct varieties, namely:
The pure Percheron races in the south, and in the canton of Bazoches; in the west, in the parishes which border on Mesle-sur-Sarthe, mares possessing in various degrees some of English blood, got from the government stud of Mesle-sur-Sarthe, which is composed exclusively of thoroughbred stallions; the canton of Moulins, in the north, nourishes another high-spirited variety, endowed with excellent action, but deficient in height. Accordingly it is more valued for furnishing good horses for service than for furnishing ameliorating types.
The best centers for stallion colts are: Regmalard, which is, if I may so say, the principal place for good stallions; Mauves, which furnished, thirty years ago, the famous stallion Jean-le-Blanc, of M. Miard. For fillies, Villers-en-Ouche, which stocked this country with magnificent Percheron mares; Verrieres, Corbon, Comblot, Courgeon, Loisail, Reveillon and Villiers.
As for the rest of Perche, it supplies Beauce and the Chartres country, on account of the great similarity existing between them. A country of transition, it buys colts to plow the fields, keeps them only a year, and sells them grown to the cultivators of Beauce, to be sent to Paris after a sojourn of a year or so upon their farms. The environs of Courville—Chateauneuf, Brézolles, La Loupe, Champroud, Thiron, Pontgouin, Verneuil, etc.—are celebrated for the taste of its farmers for fine horses. Illiers, which formerly possessed this specialty, has occupied itself for several years in weaning colts.
CHAPTER III.
SPEED AND BOTTOM OF THE PERCHERON HORSE.
We have said that one of the distinctive qualities of the Percheron horse, and one which has won for him universal esteem, was fast trotting while drawing a heavy load. It would be, however, an error to suppose that this faculty of fast trotting puts him on a level with the blood-horse. The latter draws little, it is true; but he has a long stride, and, as regards mere speed, he beats the Percheron out and out. For the presence upon the turf of such horses as Décidée and Sarah, who have trotted against blood-horses of the first order, sometimes honorably beaten and more often victorious, the presence, I say, of such horses, is but a happy and rare exception.
The specialty of the Percheron, quick draft, has then its limits, and it is these limits that I wish to make known by means of numerous examples collected with care.
What the Percheron has done in the diligences, mail and post-coaches is known to everybody; and it is useless to repeat it. From one relay to another, never dragging less than two, and more often three thousand pounds, in hot weather and cold, and over hilly, difficult roads, he made his three leagues to the hour easily, and sometimes four; but this was the “ne plus ultra,” beyond which it was not reasonable to go.
What he does in the omnibuses, the world that visits Paris realizes and admires. And this is one of the principal attractions of the Percheron horse to the intelligent stranger.
It now only remains for us to follow him upon the turf and sum up the time made in the trots won by him.
The courses, for some time frequented by him, are those of Illiers, Courtalain, Montdoubleau, and Mortagne; and here he is always to be found. It is, also, indispensable to notice, in order to be strictly impartial, that these tracks, except the new one at Mortagne, finished two years ago, were only plowed fields, hard in dry weather, but cut up like a peat-bog in wet times; that the track of Mortagne, as is well known, is placed on a steep side-hill, and joins to the above defect the one of offering three steep inclines, up and down, like the roof of a house, within a distance of 3,000 feet. The horses which had done the best elsewhere failed on this track, and took a long time to make the distance. It is to this circumstance that is to be attributed the low average time, but it is this also which shows us the courage of the Percheron. When a colt of thirty months (and of these there were a number) had bravely accomplished his task and had gone two or three times around this killing track, it could be boldly predicted that there was in him the making of a staunch and valuable horse. To all this let us add, that either under saddle or in harness, the Percheron is almost always placed in an unfavorable situation. Mounted, he is put into the hands of a youth, ardent, without experience, and without calculation, who pushes him without discretion in the beginning, and is totally ignorant of the jockey’s art. Harnessed, he is covered with heavy and inconvenient gear, and he drags either a big, heavy-running wagon, or a poor, low traveling-tilbury.
The following list shows the result of 196 trotting matches, officially reported upon the turf, and two trials to prove bottom, likewise certified with care, and will give an average of what the Percheron is capable of doing either upon rugged, cut-up, or hilly tracks, or upon the highways of a densely populated district.