This, tending incessantly to deprive Perche of that in which it is so superior, is so much more to be dreaded as the question of filling up the vacancies and of saving this race from a tendency to degeneration and from inevitable destruction becomes the necessary corollary of such commercial operations. Entered upon this course, if Perche does not adopt, without delay, salutary measures, if it does not make a vigorous effort to place itself in a condition, either to resist the tendency or to contribute to it in a well-maintained and uniform manner, the breed is fated to a complete eclipse at the moment even when the future belongs to it. Indeed _the future_ does belong to the Percheron horse, if he can sustain himself in the first rank of the truly useful races until the not far distant day when that era of triumph will come. Every thing now seems to incline to establish the truth of what, at first, appeared a paradox. I am aware that, for the moment, the Percheron has, in the class of fancy-horses, an antagonist that seems to derive formidable strength from the prestige belonging to elegance. The English thoroughbred and its congeners are in possession of the scepter of fashion and “_bon-ton_.” But this antagonism, more apparent than dangerous, on account of the elevated but rather limited spheres in which it exists, will last but for a time, and will yield before reason and the necessities of a difficult situation. Our age, factitious to excess, is governed by the demands and temptations of a luxury which is tending to ruin the most solidly established families. It wildly suffers patrimonies and fortunes to dwindle away under the lead of a vain and noisy ostentation, without perceiving that already they are decreasing and becoming less every day, under the continued action of the laws. A change will be brought about, and the effect of an inevitable reaction will be a return towards sobriety and simplicity. Recovering from the intoxication of city luxury, the best minds will, let us hope, recover their tone in the quiet of the fields, and agriculture will regain its too long forgotten rights. Tired out by allowing themselves to be eaten up by that elegant guest called the fancy-horse, and by the army of evil-doing satellites following in his train, men will come back to the one which requires but little care, and which returns good service, to the one which does not object to work, the boon companion of every man desirous of following nature’s law, which is that of labor.