The Percheron horse

by Charles Du Hays

With the Stud-book we will be able, without giving offence, to satisfy the army, the stud-stables, and the trade—the army and the stud-stables, which want the light, stylish, dark-skinned horse; the trade—omnibuses, consumption of the large cities, and agriculture—which require weight, vigor, action, honesty, docility, and endurance.

The Stud-book will furnish the means of finding types fit for all services. But the breeders will divide themselves into two opposite parties. Those who wish the dark-skinned, light horse, will breed him on the uplands and in the more barren districts. The others, in the rich, fertile, and abundant meadows, with a more nutritious food, will apply themselves to the opposite type.

Each will work in his own sphere; the profits, losses, successes, and failures, will soon be summed up, and will soon become, on both sides, the object of minute comparisons. If the light horse produce the most profit, his empire will soon extend over the domain of the heavy one.

But if, on the day of reaction, it be recognized that this crossing is incapable of ever making a good omnibus, a good shaft, or a good team horse; if the crossed breed be set aside for the primitive horse; and if it come about that the Percheron of pure race is better paid for, the fashion will soon return to him. There will the utility of the Stud-book be felt, for it will be by means of the families preserved authentically pure, in the cantons which had chosen them, that it will alone become possible to remold a race, compromised in a moment of hasty judgment, and render it plentiful upon the market.

It would suffice to bring together these types, and encourage the start in order to reëstablish Perche in all her glory. They might even, in the end, bring back to a good condition the lanky race that a better system, a more abundant nourishment, and more appropriate classification, would be called on to restore to its primitive form. Some generations would suffice to restore to it that homogeneousness that it formerly possessed, when the post-service required of it its vigorous and swift mail-coach horses.

In summing up, the Stud-book seems to me a useful agent in a triple point of view, namely: in the preservation, perfection, and restoration of the Percheron breed.

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.