Observations on the breeding of horses, within the Provinces under the Bengal establishment, submitted to the consideration of the President and members of the Board of Superintendence [of the East India Company, 1814].

  • Moorcroft, William.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Observations on the breeding of horses, within the Provinces under the Bengal establishment, submitted to the consideration of the President and members of the Board of Superintendence [of the East India Company, 1814]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    58/72 (page 43)
    ( 43 ) conveying it to the Depot expense must be incurred. Ta guard against misapplication of good Stallions to bad na¬ tive Mares, it is proposed to attacli to each Horse, a certain number of transplanted good Marcs. To this there seem objections. For if a farmer grow tired of the pursuit and neglect the Mare given to him conditionally by Govern¬ ment, or if from ignorance she be suffered to get out of condition, the only remedy is to resume the animal I say the only remedy, because direct abuse or mismanage¬ ment wonld be proved and punished with equal difficulty. The Mare resumed and out of condition must either be disposed of at once, on the same terms to another farmer, or be kept by the State till her condition be re-established^ In the former instance a suspicion of her constitution being bad, or of her being barren, takes possession of his mind and checks his exertions. Fearing an inadequate return for his labor he acts во as to deserve it. Thus, a Mare valuable in herself, but degraded by mismanagement may be lost to the State unless carefully fed, and this involves expense and loss of time. I speak from -what I have_ seen in the Nisfee plan, as the result of ignorance, or mismanagement, and even of contractors sometimes throw¬ ing their Mares purposely out of condition, rather than ac¬ knowledge with candor that keeping them longer would be inconvenient. Agreements with penalties on breeders suffering their Mares to get out of condition were insuffi¬ cient to ensure steady attention. Small fines were dis¬ regarded, large ones could not be levied, because the bene¬ fits on the contract were only moderate, and the contrae^ tors poor. And to have raised their profit so as to have justified a large fine, Avould have destroyed that frugality on which the merit of the Nisfee system mainly rested. Besides the practice of diffusion could only proceed upon the basis of encouragement ; to have attempted it through coercion would have been equally futile and oppressive. It was conceived that an increased profit would give steadiness of attention. This was tried and failed. Unsteady in its progress as at its commencement so Injury done to Gorem- ment Mares. A* Ln Nisfee plaiK x Which wa* «Iwây» «В' (teadr.