Chapter IX Improvement by Means of the Stud-Book
The Percheron breed is old enough, is propagated with sufficient uniformity, and presents sufficiently marked typical qualities to authorize us in claiming, in favor of its members, the characteristics and the title of a separate and distinct breed. Consequently, a Stud-book, recording its pedigrees, would not be out of place. This book would have the effect of concentrating the efforts of all the breeders, giving them a definite direction, and at the same time it would designate stallions foreign to the race, and which, up to the present time, have been presented with impunity as Percherons.
England exhibits a curious example of the influence of the Stud-book in the improvement of a breed. The equine and bovine races of that country, before the establishment of the Stud and Herd-books, were but rudimental.
The small number of colts of the Royal mares by Eastern stallions would have been lost had they not been classed together in families in a special book.
The discovery of the value of the bull Hubback would have been to no purpose had his descendants not been classified by themselves in an authentic manner.
For it is especially, and only, in the reproduction by family that a breed is formed. Consanguinity alone can form, in the beginning, a bond of cohesion and connection among the descendants of the primitive families. By it, alone, they acquire that great similarity of shape and adaptation to particular ends, that great ancestral power, which they transmit to their posterity, and which, even in a commercial point of view, gives them a superior value.
If it be permitted me for this purpose to select an example within our reach among the bovine races, I would say that, in Nivernais the celebrated Charollaise breed of cattle, only a few years ago, was diffuse, without uniformity, and without commercial value. The idea of classifying it by means of a Herd-book was no sooner put in practice than good crossings, being all made with system, no longer lost their significance. The breed has visibly improved, and, at present, it has acquired a value which gives it a rank immediately after the Cotentin.
The Stud-book might be established, as we have indicated above, by inscribing therein all the stallions and mares which had received prizes for years back, continuing this operation for a dozen years to come, and adding therein also the animals which had not taken prizes or had not been shown in the fairs, but which public attention had classed among the number of types valuable on account of the beauty and sureness of their reproduction.
Parallel to the mode of improvement which I have already shown, (Chapter 1st, Part Second), and which has as its agents the members of the Council-boards and the district members of each canton, there might be formed, as a means of embracing all, a great annual Department Fair, to be held alternately in the best towns of Perche at the time of the fairs which attract the most people; in Orne, at Mortagne and Alençon; at Chartres, Nogent-le-Rotrou, and Chateaudun, for Eure and Loir; at Vendôme and Montdoubleau for the department of Loir and Cher. The departments of the Cote-d’Or, Nievre, and Youne, which possess the best Percheron stallions, might likewise enter into the association of the Percheron Stud-book, for which they have all the elements.
This book would give increased value to the breed, as is easily understood, for it is the surest of all the means of improvement and perpetuation of valuable qualities. It would drive off, forever, the defective stallions, and those corrupted with hereditary blemishes, as well as those coming from tainted families, which, I feel sure, would be refused a record in its pages. The prices of colts would likewise gain by this measure, the effect being a powerful impulse given to breeding. But it would be necessary to be very careful about ever admitting any foreign blood, in order that the recorded herds might accumulate more and more an ancestral force.
The Stud-book would offer still another advantage, that of permitting us to find again the good types, should Perche some day, in consequence of bad crossings, or from want of judgment, deviate from the true way. In fact, desire of gaining too much and of enjoying too fast at present tempts every body into innovations. Our age, so eager to enjoy, and so quick in all enterprises, has no longer the patience to wait for the improvements that time and study can alone confirm and solidly establish. It wants things off-hand, and for this it is often satisfied with adulterated products; hence, these injudicious crossings; hence, this mania for mixing together without discernment—a mania which threatens to destroy our valuable national breeds.
In the midst of all this, the opposition of the army, of the government stud-stables, and of the trade in heavy horses, bring forth new complications. The army, neither occupied in breeding nor raising, and naturally remaining beyond the consequences it causes, encourages these crossings, obtaining thereby, more rapidly, the horses it needs. But how many of the horses bred by these means are not only unfit for army service, but also unfit for any service! Indeed, with a blood stallion and a common mare, if at the first crossing, among the thin-flanked, imperfect ones, there happen to be a passable horse, good, and with a certain degree of style, ordinarily all progress ends there. For, by the use of the latter as a reproducer, an animal ungainly and without value will most certainly be the result, except by chance. The races of the south affiliate with the Arab, and those of the north with the English; but the English, by the infusion of his blood, destroys the race of the south. This mode of crossing tends, then, to cause our old French races to disappear.
At the government studs, with elevated views, and with a disinterestedness to which all delight in rendering full justice and homage, they constantly encourage the crossings in which they see the realization of their views. They offer rewards, the most powerful of all incentives—giving but very modest prizes to the heavy horses, proscribing the light coats, and reserving their encouragement for the light horses of dark colors.
As for the trade, it adopts but slightly the views of the army and the government stables, and it gives its money to what has remained outside of these impulses.
With the Stud-book we will be able, without giving offence, to satisfy the army, the stud-stables, and the trade—the army and the stud-stables, which want the light, stylish, dark-skinned horse; the trade—omnibuses, consumption of the large cities, and agriculture—which require weight, vigor, action, honesty, docility, and endurance.
The Stud-book will furnish the means of finding types fit for all services. But the breeders will divide themselves into two opposite parties. Those who wish the dark-skinned, light horse, will breed him on the uplands and in the more barren districts. The others, in the rich, fertile, and abundant meadows, with a more nutritious food, will apply themselves to the opposite type.
Each will work in his own sphere; the profits, losses, successes, and failures, will soon be summed up, and will soon become, on both sides, the object of minute comparisons. If the light horse produce the most profit, his empire will soon extend over the domain of the heavy one.
But if, on the day of reaction, it be recognized that this crossing is incapable of ever making a good omnibus, a good shaft, or a good team horse; if the crossed breed be set aside for the primitive horse; and if it come about that the Percheron of pure race is better paid for, the fashion will soon return to him. There will the utility of the Stud-book be felt, for it will be by means of the families preserved authentically pure, in the cantons which had chosen them, that it will alone become possible to remold a race, compromised in a moment of hasty judgment, and render it plentiful upon the market.
It would suffice to bring together these types, and encourage the start in order to reëstablish Perche in all her glory. They might even, in the end, bring back to a good condition the lanky race that a better system, a more abundant nourishment, and more appropriate classification, would be called on to restore to its primitive form. Some generations would suffice to restore to it that homogeneousness that it formerly possessed, when the post-service required of it its vigorous and swift mail-coach horses.
In summing up, the Stud-book seems to me a useful agent in a triple point of view, namely: in the preservation, perfection, and restoration of the Percheron breed.