Led into the interior upon the fertile meadows of Mauves, Pin, Regmalard, Corbon, Lougny, Reveillon, Courgeon, Saint-Langis, Villiers, Courgeoust, etc., etc., it remains one year unproductive. In winter it is fed upon hay, in the stable, and during the fine season turned into the fields to graze. To sum up, it is rather poorly nourished on bran, grass, and hay. The reason is, it is as yet unproductive to its master, and it feels the effects. Wait a little; its hardest time has gone by, and work will soon soften its lot. It reaches, in this manner, the age of 15 or 18 months. What has it cost for keeping? Very little. Estimate, about 80 or 100 francs. At this age it is put to work. Naturally docile and in the hands of a man always patient and mild, its training is generally easy. Assigned to farm labor, it plows or draws a wagon. Harnessed with four or five colts of its own age, together they pull what would be an easy load for two good horses. Put before two oxen, or joined to three of its companions, it plows and is never overworked. Now, it is better fed, and taken a great deal better care of. Its “_morale_” improves, and its master seems to delight in contemplating the progress and the development of its qualities. Thus, in traveling through Perche, one involuntarily stops in the midst of the fields to see it work, never tired of admiring the vigor it displays, and the gentleness with which it is treated. The bait is there. At the age of three the Beauce farmer buys it to work his soft and light soil. For him, it must be preserved intact, its development uninjured, nay encouraged. Master, servants, large and small, all deeply imbued with the love of the horse, unite in this work with admirable skill. It has thus worked during one year, abundantly fed, but receiving little or no grain. Doing enough light work to pay for its keep, the master has received, besides its manure, a heavy interest on the cost, as we will presently see. This premature work, which would have been injurious under a careless management, is, on the contrary, beneficial when it is in the hands of a good master. This is so much the general case, that the contrary is the exception. The animal grows and becomes better developed in size and strength. Now, as we before observed, the Beauce farmer comes to buy. He lives in a country of proverbial richness. The work there is abundant, but the nature of the soil renders it extremely easy. The fields, very much divided, and distant one from another, make a rapid gait indispensable. In Beauce, the horse cannot be replaced as a beast of burden; no matter how dear his keeping, his use is indispensable; the ox cannot be his competitor. But it is a fact of the greatest importance to state, that it is to the ox that the Percheron horse owes a part of his celebrity.