HORSE AND PONY-BREEDING

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11535, 21 November 1900, Page 4

HORSE AND PONY-BREEDING

One very important result of the Boer war has been to demonstrate, the value of mounted infantry and the necessity of providing reliable sources for the supply of mounts and remounts. During the year, the British colonies, North and South America and Europe itself have been ransacked by the Imperial buyers of horseflesh. As neither armies, armaments, nor horses can be made at a moment's notice, it is natural that in these days of general military reorganisation the question of mounts should come to the front. Among suggestions to which considerable attention has been paid is one that the small and hardy horses now ranked as " ponies" should be raised in large numbers in place of deer on the English parks. But it is certain that sufficient grass-land cannot possibly be spared in the United Kingdom to supply the increasing demand and to maintain a reserve for the sudden and enormous requirements of war. To remedy this, it has been proposed that the Imperial Government should maintain immense horse-breeding stations in the colonies, from which the military demand could be met. This latter proposal should be discouraged by all interested in colonial development. Of all industries, that of stock-raising is least fitted for bureaucratic administration. It is engaged in by a very considerable proportion of all the colonial populations from the small farmer, or tradesman, to the owner who counts his stock by the thousand head. The supply of suitable horses obtainable from private breeders is not now equal to the demand merely because the demand was new and sudden—and a horse cannot be made like a cartridge. To disturb the industry by the establishment of costly stations, whose existence would not only close the military horse market to the thousands of private producers, but would inevitably swamp the general market with those horses rejected as below the military standard— for Government places would not breed even as high a percentage of standard horses as private establishments — would do an enormous amount of harm. If the Imperial Government would set up a standard to which breeders throughout the world could breed, it could be left to colonial Governments to supply such facilities and encouragement as might be necessary to secure to their localities a share of this profitable business. Let our New Zealand stock-raisers once know what beast is demanded, and be sure that the price to be obtained is reasonable, and they will soon create a supply.