22O LOWER ANIMALS. 



have use-inheritance accompanied by inheritance by sex. The fol- 

 lowers of Wiesmann tell us that the trotting horse has been pro- 

 duced solely by selection and not at all by the results of use-inher- 

 itance. On the contrary, the men who have bred our great trotters 

 tell us that no great trotters have been produced except from 

 mares who have seen much hard service, and they give us many ex- 

 amples to substantiate the assertion. "The famous old pacing mare 

 Pocahontas paced some of the hardest races of her life in the winter 

 of 1853-4, and her great son, Tom Rolfe, was foaled a few months 

 afterwards." Auracaria was foaled by Pocahontas when she was 

 25 years old and, "contrary to what might be expected, this daugh- 

 ter of her old age herself became a great brood mare, producing, 

 among others, the grand race horses Chamant and Rayon D'Or. 7 " 

 Sanders also tells us 8 that "it is notorious that females that breed 

 too early fail to attain their full size and development. Above all, 

 the system of breeding from immature animals should not be con- 

 tinued from generation to generation, as that can only tend to ac- 

 cumulate and intensify the evil." 



THE FASTEST TROTTERS IN THE WORLD. 



In examining the pedigrees of the 132 fastest trotting horses 

 in the world I found the average age of the sires to be 10.20 years, 

 and the average age of the dams to be 9.20 years. The average age 

 of the grandsires was 12.86 years, and of the grandams it was 

 9.88. For great-grandsires it was 13.14 years, and for great-gran- 

 dams it was 10.56 years. These results are averages from a total 

 of 1,239 sires and dams, and they illustrate the fact that while the 

 son of a comparatively young sire may develop considerable speed 



(7) Sanders, Horse Breeding, pp. 178-9. 



(8) Ibid., p. 174. 



