The Percheron horse

Chapter 18: CHAPTER I. REGENERATION OF THE PERCHERON BREED.

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About This Book

The text surveys the history, physical traits, and breeding of a heavy draught horse, tracing its origins, regional variations, and factors behind recent decline. It evaluates methods to restore quality, comparing selection within the breed, consanguinity risks, and foreign crossings—notably Arabian and English blood—while arguing for preserving three distinct types. Practical chapters cover stud-books, rearing, feeding, market practices, and tests of speed and endurance, and offer guidance for purchasers and breeders. The work balances technical breeding theory with agricultural detail and concrete recommendations for improving and conserving the breed.

CHAPTER I.
REGENERATION OF THE PERCHERON BREED.

There are two ways of crossing applicable to any breed, both of which have had their earnest partisans. So much clamor has been made about them, I think, only because they have been simultaneously used and often mingled, and the results have been deranged by their use. This might have been avoided by commencing with the simplest and continuing with the best.

The first may be called the renewal of a breed within itself, or interbreeding; the second, improving by foreign blood. We will pass them rapidly in review, trying to reach in the results the solid basis of truth.