  The existence of nuclear matter at large $N_{c}$ is investigated in the
framework of effective hadronic models of the Walecka type. This issue is
strongly related to the nucleon-nucleon attraction in the scalar channel, and
thus to the nature of the light scalar mesons. Different scenarios for the
light scalar sector correspond to different large $N_{c}$ scaling properties of
the parameters of the hadronic models. In all realistic phenomenological
scenarios for the light scalar field(s) responsible for the attraction in the
scalar channel it is found that nuclear matter does not bind in the large
$N_{c}$ world. We thus conclude that $N_{c}=3$ is in this respect special: 3 is
fortunately not large at all and allows for nuclear matter, while large $N_{c}$
would not.
