The Percheron horse

by Charles Du Hays

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.