Not Dead Yet.

The horse is still very much with us, one is glad to note, in spite of the all-pervading motor car. Otago province, according to figures quoted in Dunedin lately by the Hon. W. B. Taverner, Minister of Railways, has 56,000 horses, an increase of 13,000 since 1881. People who don't travel much in the back country, off the main roads, are perhaps inclined to imagine that the horse is on the way towards extinction. Happily this is emphatically not the case. There is so much up-and-down country in New Zealand, so much land that cannot be farmed closely or roaded and railwayed easily, that the horse will always be an economic necessity. And quite apart from that, and apart also from the sport of racing, there are a great many of us who welcome horseback as a pleasing change from the more artificial ways.

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The present writer, given a good horse, would infinitely prefer that way of travelling, with its freedom and independence of road conditions, to the monotony of the car. A horse is a companion and a friend. Can you call a motor car that by any stretch of imagination?

In America, especially in the Eastern States, there has been quite a revulsion for the dominating automobile, and in some of the great wild parks riding tracks have been formed in preference to motor roads. Horseback-riding classes are becoming a fashion in some of the great cities, with the result that the breeding of good riding hacks is again a flourishing business. Years ago New Zealand sent many shipments of cavalry remounts and polo ponies to India. Australia still sends such shiploads regularly, and possibly New Zealand breeders may again find it a paying business.