It is possible that their suspicions were not a little increased
by the malicious insinuations of persons, who, from motives too
obvious to require any explanation, took great pains at that
time to render abortive every public undertaking in which I was
engaged. But be that as it may, the fact is, I could never find
means to remove these suspicions entirely, and I met with so much
difficulty in carrying the measure into execution, that I was
induced at last to abandon it, or rather to postpone its
execution to a more favourable moment. Some few mares (two or
three hundred) were placed in different parts of the country;
and some very fine colts have been produced from them, during the
six years that have elapsed since this institution was formed;
but these slow advances do not satisfy the ardour of my zeal for
improvement; and if means are not found to accelerate them,
Bavaria, with all her natural advantages for breeding fine
horses, must be obliged, for many years to come, to continue to
import horses from foreign countries.
My attempts to improve the breed of horned cattle, though
infinitely more confined, have been proportionally much more
successful. Upon forming the public garden at Munich, as the
extent of the grounds is very considerable, the garden being
above six English miles in circumference, and the soil being
remarkably good, I had an opportunity of making, within the
garden, a very fine and a very valuable farm; and this farm being
stocked with about thirty of the finest cows that could be
procured from Switzerland, Flanders, Tyrol, and other places upon
the Continent famous for a good breed of horned cattle; and this
flock being refreshed annually with new importations of cows as
well as bulls, all the cows which are produced, are distributed
in the country, being sold to any person of the country who
applies for them, AND WITH PROMISE TO REAR THEM, at the same low
prices at which the most ordinary calves of the common breed of
the country are sold to the butchers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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