Is not this tall, lank, weak,—in a word this abortive progeny,—issue of strong and hardy parents, a strange and discouraging result? “Oh! why is this?” exclaimed the Brittany cultivators. There was a simple reason for it, of which they had not learned the value. They proceeded with race-horse speed in the way of crossing, and gave no oats. They were ignorant of the requirements of the _distingué_ horse; they did not know that in the sire and dam, or at least in one of them, there was circulating more or less English blood, which produces strange results in proportion as it leaves its native place and reaches a poor country or one of hard work, and in which it no longer receives the prodigal care of its native land. We have said that the Arab preserves indefinitely his warm blood and constantly gives what he has not even himself,—although this truth resembles a paradox,—that is: a powerful appearance and a strong frame. It is not the same with the English horse and his derivatives; they become thin and always degenerate. If their progeny be not fed with oats without stint,—they require this, and are heavy eaters, like everything which comes from the north,—their blood grows poorer rapidly. In successive generations of these families, born in a dull and damp atmosphere scarcely ever visited by the sun, the legs become lean and lanky. It is necessary to recur incessantly to new drafts of English upon English, always expensive and requiring additional care, without taking into account that the result of too great an infusion of this peevish and often irascible blood would be to destroy the heavy-draft race—a race that I would like to see preserved intact alongside of the two others, though he be not quite suited to a country as hilly as Perche. He might, doubtless, plow successfully the vast and smooth plains of Beauce; but this is not the lot of all. I look for him in that busy country called Perche, where he must, without rest or pity, with a shoulder free from all tenderness, drag heavy vehicles to the tops of hills, and it will please me to see the play of his haunches and limbs in descending with these loads bravely and without flinching to the bottom of the valleys. Do you expect, also, from a horse derived from English blood that cool, restrained, and ever fresh energy, that courageous patience of which the Percheron, every day, gives an example in the omnibuses of the streets of Paris? Dragging at a trot heavy loads, the weight of which frightens the imagination; stopping short, both in ascending or descending; starting off freely and always without balking; never sulking at his work or food, and fearing neither heat nor cold: this is a specimen of Percheron qualities. Do you expect from an unjudicious cross with English blood a good, heavy draft-horse, a good shaft-horse, or a true wagon-horse? No one has now any illusion on this score.