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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 70

Breeding Horses

Breeding Horses.

Many an animal called a horse that had eaten grass, and is now sold for 10s or 20s, might, with the use of such good Government entires as I have suggested, have been available at a fair price for the Indian or other markets. Thirty-five years ago, when I first came to this Colony, I was commissioned to enquire into the possibility of getting remount horses here for the cavalry in India. Government entires, to be had at a low fee, would also do away with much of the objection to the proposed tax aimed at low-class entires, and so help to get rid of them. In settled districts something might be done about Maori entires if there were facilities for the Maoris getting the page 33 use of good entires cheaply. More unlikely things have happened than sending New Zealand horses to England for sale. It would be a question, first, of having the horses, then of freight and risk. If anything of the sort came about, high-class horses of the thoroughbred type (perhaps too slow for the big races, but suitable for hacks and hunters) and the heaviest class of draught horse would be the most likely sort, and would find a market in London and the provinces. Four-, five-, and six-year-old horses, carefully broken to their work, would be most suitable, both on account of the voyage and that they could be got into the users' hands as soon after the voyage as possible. It is hardly needful to say that horse should be completely accustomed to dry feed for a considerable time before being sent on any long voyage or they will not have fair play for condition or appearance on being landed. The hacks and hunters would be worth in London probably from £90 to £150, leaving on one side that sometimes three or four times these prices are paid. When in London last, now 18 years ago, I drove a team that cost £600 (nothing extraordinary), and was sold within two months for £700. A friend sold a hack for two hundred guineas. Brewers' horses in London are worth from £80 to £100. There are quite 8000 such horses in use by the brewers in London. They weigh nearly a ton, and are replaced after a few years' work, and are mostly, I believe, put to their work when about six years—of course there are many heavy horses in London for dock and warehouse work. The rather lighter horses in use by the municipality cost £75. Liverpool and Manchester employ about 82,000 of the heaviest class of draught horse for dock and warehouse work. The horses required to be replaced yearly of these is about 7000 for Manchester and Liverpool. Inferior horses of any kind would not be worth the freight. If one-tenth of the land-holders in the Colony could sell a horse out of the Colony yearly at £20 net here, it would mean about £100,000 brought into the country—a possible source of income that is hardly admitted yet. I am not suggesting the breeding of horses for any purpose on a large scale, only as a means of supplementing income by feeding good horses instead of the absolute rubbish now generally kept. By steamer it takes about seven times the lime to England that it does to Australia, and about twice the time that it does to India. New Zealand horses in England would be in a not dissimilar climate, and of course would be English in blood. England would no doubt furnish the highest prices, but it would be well to have an agent there looking for likely buyers before the horses are page 34 shipped. Many years ago sailing ships brought long-wool ewes in number from England here. The ships were fitted up on purpose, were about 1000 tons, and brought about 1000 ewes each. Four thousand ewes were brought at one time, I think from Scotland, in charge of shepherds in four ships. The loss was nominal, and then was a heavy lambing a few weeks after landing in New Zealand. The voyage occupied about four months. Horses sent by steamer would be under much more favourable conditions than these sheep in sailing vessels, in many ways, understood by sea-faring men, where the arrangement was to take care of the horses; then the seven weeks to England instead of four months, the voyage also being timed to a few days. The steamers could be partly fitted up so as to carry a moderate number of horses as safely as possible. I was only talking of this to direct attention to possible outlets. Besides, we might want horses for our own cavalry some day, when we were more independent of England.