The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎91r] (186/244)

1892
AUSTRIAN ST FARMS
671
covenant in his father's will to maintain a stud of 100 or more breed
ing mares. The mares at Kadautz are not solely selected for their
shape and pedigree, but the characteristics of each family are care
fully watched, and every year six picked mares are sent to the riding-
school at Vienna and elaborately trained, and those that develop
specially good qualities are kept for the stud, and the others disposed
of. This careful selection, and the gentle handling that the horses
receive, are very manifest, and the military control appears to have
an excellent effect in the exactitude with which everything is
done, and the manner in which orders are obeyed. That this would
be impossible with civilians was found when for some time the stud
at Eadautz was under civilian control, with anything but good
results. The horses that are not good enough for stud purposes, or
are not required by the State, are disposed of annually by an auction
held at Eadautz at the end of September, but to buy a horse that is
valued in the stud seems to be an impossibility.
That the Austrian Government is doing much to improve the
horses in the country is self-evident, and, although it is said to be at
the cost of some 100,000^. a year, no one can say, having regard to
the many indirect advantages which thereby accrue to the State, that
this money is otherwise than profitably expended. The administra
tion, which is admirably carried out under the personal supervision of
Count Graevenitz, is under the general control of the Minister of
Agriculture, and the supply of well-bred untiring horses, suitable for
hacks and harness horses, and in many cases for chargers, is simply
unlimited. I had not the opportunity of seeing the Austrian cavalry,
but from the raw material I saw, in contrast to the three-cornered
animals one too often sees purchased at Irish fairs for troopers, it is
conceivable that the Austrian stamp of cavalry horse is very different
from the English troop horse.
No doubt, too, from the communes, and also from private owners,
it is possible to buy good horses, and the German colonies, of
which there are some eleven or twelve in Bukovina, are said to have
a specially good race of mares, which, when crossed with the half-bred
Arab stallions, produce very good results. It may seem strange to
any Englishman that the highest authorities should so continuously
breed from half-breds, but it must be borne in mind that all the
stallions in the stud so called half-bred are descended from families
whose breeding has been carefully watched for perhaps almost a
century.
Whether the Austrians would be wiser to devote more attention
to developing that half-bred Arab race which struck me as so
good, and whether, by their desire for powerful horses, they are
a little led away to overlook coarseness at the expense of quality, is
open to question. That they thoroughly understand the manage-
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