The foot ought to be taken up straight, by a graceful bend of the knee, and set down again flat, without any deviation either outwards or inwards. The most common faults of action are a sort of shovelling movement forwards, with the knees almost straight, and a sideways motion, either outwards or inwards, with one or both feet. But it is quite possible for the knee to be too much bent, and the foot to be apparently pushed backwards when taken up instead of forwards, thus causing it to be set down too near the place whence it was raised. Objectionable, however, as such stand-still action may be in a hack, I should prefer it in a brood-mare to the opposite defect.

The great reason why action in a mare is so essential is, that she having the roadster blood ought to supply it; whereas, it is not always possible to find it in a stallion; it is, indeed, very rare to see a thorough-bred horse whose action is such as would be desirable in the park hack, the roadster, or the hunter. The racing man cares not, provided his horse's head is first seen at the winningpost, in what form he moves his forelegs. The qualities which win fame for the racer are speed, endurance, and pluck. The conformation most conducive to speed depends more on the back, loins and hindlegs, than on the forelegs; it is therefore by no means uncommon to find horses, whose performances on the turf have been above mediocrity, with forelegs such as would not wear for three months on the road, and with action such as no man would willingly endure in his hack or his hunter. Thorough-bred horses, with every point such as the breeder would desire, combining power and beauty, equally excellent in their forelegs, their ribs, and their hindlegs, are not to be met with in every neighborhood, and even when found will seldom cover half-bred mares at all, and then only at exorbitant prices. These are the magnates of the stud which will not condescend to mates of descent less illustrious than their own. If, then, you cannot secure their services, you must avail yourself of the best within your reach. Supposing your mare has the forelegs of the action which I have recommended, you may safely put her to a horse which has tolerable forelegs, provided he is in general power, in pedigree, and in performance, such as you desire. I mentioned, in a former letter, that I once put some mares of my own to "Tomboy;" his forelegs were by no means first-rate and his front action was decidedly scrambling and bad; but my mares being excellent in both these points, their stock showed no traces there of their sire's deficiency. To breed colts with bad forelegs and insufficient bone, is to encumber your land with stock neither useful nor saleable. With mares of first-rate excellence in that respect, you greatly extend the range of stallions which it is safe to put to them.

I shall not enlarge upon other points of the mare in detail, for the reason that their selection may in general be left to the discre

tion of the breeder; and also, because there are many of them which in practice will be more frequently supplied by the horse than the mare. I must say, however, that I should not like to breed from a mare with a bad head or a small eye. Natural soundness, especially in the feet, is very important, and so is good temper. With mares, as with cows and ewes, there is a certain character difficult to describe, but which the experienced breeder knows by instinct, as belonging to those likely to produce good stock. It is not the largest, or the most showy, but those which have a certain refinement of form, and a gracefulness of outline (which are as characteristic of the well-bred female as power and muscle are of the male,) which will most faithfully reflect in their offspring their own merits, and those of its sire. Many a large, showy mare, on the contrary, will be provokingly uncertain in her produce; one year bringing a foal as much undersize as next year it is overgrown. Such a mare ought to be discarded as soon as possible.

By observing the course which I have recommended, farmers who exercise ordinary judgment will make as safe an investment as they would in the breeding of any other kind of stock. Their colts will make either hunters, carriage-horses, or hacks of a useful and powerful kind.

There is a class of mares much higher than that which I have described above; I mean those which combine great power with a pedigree little short of thorough-bred-mares which have in their youthful days been foremost in the hunting-field, and contended, perhaps not unsuccessfully, in the steeple chase. Such are the dams of the cracks of the Melton field, and of the victors at Liverpool and Leamington. But they are so difficult to buy, and so rarely in the market, that the majority of breeders have little chance of trying their luck with them. Their owners naturally desire to secure a foal, when it may be a great prize, won at a small cost, and will therefore seldom be disposed to part with them. It requires, moreover, a more ripened judgment, and more mature experience, to select mares fit for the production of first-class hunters and steeplechasers, than for the rearing of a less ambitious character of stock. The stallion to which they are put ought to be one of a superior class to the majority of the itinerant animals which secure the custom of so many farmers, simply because they save them the trouble of further inquiry. It may be laid down as a general rule that the horse ought, if possible, to be a better animal than the mare. Then there is the difficulty, even when a horse of tried excellence is found, of discovering whether his points and his blood suit the mare. The art and the science of breeding first-rate horses, are not to be mastered without much thought, trouble, and research. There is no royal road to it. He who is wise, in spite of every obstacle, to attain golden results, must adopt a course the very antipodes of the too common one, of putting some mare, because he happens to

have her, to some horse, because it happens to come into his yard. He must never breed from a bad mare or a bad horse; nor must he grudge a few pounds spent in securing the best of either sex within his reach. A judicious outlay of capital will here assuredly not fail to reap the reward which has attended the improvement of every other description of stock.- Mark-Lane Express.

SUPERIORITY OF FRENCH HORSES.

There are weak points in every argument. Causes of superiority in French horses in the Crimea.

Having in a preceding article attempted to sustain, in a brief manner, the proposition, that beautiful animals supposed to inherit blood, courage, endurance, &c., were less liable to many common diseases than others. It may be proper to remark that there are weak points in the argument.

All physiologists are aware that health depends almost exclusively on the efforts that are made to secure it. It never comes of good luck, nor by special favor, but results from careful management, in and out of the stable, or elsewhere, and by preserving an equilibrium in the various functions of the body-active, daily exercise; pure air, and food, proportioned to the wants of the animal machine. Such are the means of preserving health. "Death is the wages of

sin," and it is certainly sinful to neglect the above simple means.

Now for the weak points. It may be urged by our readers that the English Cavalry horses stationed in the Crimea, the "flower of British Stud," have proved almost worthless, far inferior to French horses. But the fault exists in the evils of domestication. English horses, like some of their masters, are too delicately reared; enjoy all the luxuries of modern domestication and civilization; stimulating food, comfortable quarters, and a sort of a fast life, places them in the condition of a hot-house plant, and entirely unfits them for the "rough and tumble" of life, consequently they are ill adapted to endure a winter campaign in the boisterous Crimea.

This furnishes a key to develop the secret of the great loss which the English have sustained in horseflesh; the most beautiful, couragous, strongest, swiftest and valuable have succumbed under the chilling blasts of the North, and the inferior fodder on which a soldier's horse must necessarily subsist, while occupying the territory of an hostile army.

It is a notorious fact, that a large proportion of the stables in the mother country are built on the air-tight principle, and there

fore, the inmates lead a sort of air-tight life; pure air-the breath of life is a luxury they can seldom enjoy only under the most unfavorable circumstances in the race or chase-when speed, wind and bottom are the order of the day. At such times the lungs and locomotive powers are performing herculean labor. Under such circumstances, the air respired fails to decarbonize the blood, or counteract the effects of an air-tight atmosphere.

Beauty and endurance, therefore, are no match against ir discreet stable management; for the more delicately we rear an animal, the more liable is he to disease during a rough campaign. And the same applies to his lord and master. Consequently, health does not depend on beauty and symmetry alone; for if an animal, having a faultless form, and other requisites for length of days, be taken out of a warm, comfortable stable, and made to shift for himself in all weathers and under all circumstances, the natural consequence is: disease and death.

We are informed that the French, in the Crimea, have lost a less number of horses than the English; and the former attribute their good fortune to the facts, that their horses have been less delicately reared; and while on the battle ground, have had better care and attention than those of the English.

Hence a beautiful and pampered horse, is, under certain circumstances, more liable to some diseases than the ill-favored and neglected creature.

But gradually accustom the former to the vicissitudes of camplife, and they will endure any, and every, thing that horse-flesh is capable of. The weak points, therefore, do not invalidate our proposition.

GROUND OATS.

THE Drought which has prevailed for many weeks, up to the present time, will cause an upward tendency in the price of fodder; consequently, every farmer and yeoman must study practical economy in that important department of husbandry termed feeding and rearing

The first experiment we shall advise them to make, in view of feeding and rearing horses, is, to have their oats ground. Ground oats furnish more nutriment, and keep the bowels in better condition, than when served out whole. By grinding the oats we seperate them into a myriad of particles, and present them to the gastric solvents in a form calculated to secure their speedy digestionin fact, they are in a condition favorable to speedy insalivation.

Ground oats are more nutritious than whole, for the same reasons that flour is more so than unground wheat.

Ground oats contain more of the nitrogenous, or flesh-making principle, than any other kind of horse food; at the same time they furnish a mixture of coarse and fine food -the husk of the oats constitute the first, and meal the latter. The coarse material serves to keep the bowels in a soluble condition-irritate and excite the mucous coat, and thus obviate the necessity for drastic medicine. This kind of food is decidedly the most economical for working horses. They require, however, a certain quantity of sweet hay, in view of distending the stomach to a healthy capacity.

We now introduce an article, from the " Germantown Telegraph," calculated for the superior animal.

"Mr. Editor,- It is said by those who are familiar with the statistics of the bread trade in our principal cities, that there is a rapidly increasing prejudice against brown bread among all classes. Why is this? Brown bread-that from good maize-if properly and honestly manufactured, is certainly far more conducive to health and longevity than bread from wheat flour, especially if the latter is bolted, and only the finer parts kneaded into the loaf. It may not be altogether so aristocratic an article of diet; but of its superior value and cheapness there can be not the slightest doubt. In France, the question whether the bolting of flour is advantageous was very early agitated, as early, indeed, as the reign of Louis XIV.; for an ordinance issued by him in 1658, prohibited, under certain penalties, the regrinding of bran, and its mixture with the flour. It is not always easy to ascertain how much bran bushel of wheat contains, as different specimens of wheat give very dif ferent results. That bran is not an entirely worthless or innutritious article, is fully demonstrated by the results of analysis made by M. Millon, of France-the sample being from a soft French wheat grown in 1848:

The logical inference deducible from the foregoing tabular exhibit is, that bran is a nutritive substance, and of course, as such, should not be thrown away. Every pound of bran which we sift from the ground wheat diminishes the value of the mass, and consequently is