Annual Meeting 1091 



purposes is absululely against all principles of common sense and 

 of good judgment. As a rule, crossing should be with near of kin, 

 and there would be great danger in crossing the thoroughbred 

 with any such pldegmatic breeds as the draft breeds you mention. 

 The result would not be a blend of the good qualities of both, but 

 a mosaic of possibly the least desirable qualities. 



'' The thoroughbred enters naturally into the hunter and the 

 trotter, and combination with the Arab, which is near of kin, is 

 likely to produce good results. The best horse of the foreign 

 horse breeds is a selection from the entirely different northern 

 horse stock, which has been a draft type from the beginning, re- 

 lated to all the Shire horses of England and the great draft breeds 

 of France. A very long time ago these breeds had a mixture of 

 Arab, which gave them the quality of spirit." 



It seemed to me, at first, like assuming the role of a fool who 

 rushes in where angels fear to tread, to take issue with so eminent 

 an authority as Professor Osborne. I could not dissuade myself, 

 however, from the conviction that his theory is untenable, for if 

 there be any comparison permissible with the American race, 

 which is jjerhaps the most heterogeneous crystallization of human 

 beings since the beginning of time and if the result of antithetical 

 cross breeding be " a mosaic of possibly the least desirable quali- 

 ties," then we are a nation of undesirables. 



His statements, nevertheless, did not put a quietus on my 

 investigations and I immediately set to work to look iip ante- 

 cedents for the germ that had gotten into my inner conscious- 

 ness. With some degree of skill and knowledge, I put my hand 

 upon the writings of Prof. J. Wortley Axe, ex-president of the 

 Eoyal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and an acknowledged 

 authority on the subject of the horse, its treatment in health and 

 disease, its origin, breeding, training, and management. From 

 him I learned that the English and Irish hunter, which is re- 

 garded all the world over as the general utility horse jxir excel- 

 lence, has descended from just such cross-bred origin as I have 

 described. 



As he says, although there are a few horses more sought after 

 than a first-rate weight-carrying hunter, the fact remains that 

 in the vast majority of cases the animal belongs to no definite 



