1520 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



are of nondescript type and character. Such horses neither make a name 

 for the district as a horse-breeding center, nor attract buyers wilHng to 

 pay appreciative prices. The individual farmer will do better to cast 

 in his lot with the majority of his neighbors and breed the same type that 

 they are breeding, even though that type may not be the one that suits 

 his fancy best or even the one that is best suited to the district. 



Under the system suggested, the buyer of any particular type or breed 

 should be able to go to a district noted for the production of the class 

 of animal required and there find it in siifficient numbers, uniform in 

 type and quality, to meet all needs. Could this be done, buyers would 

 save much time and expense and would be ready and wilHng to pay better 

 prices for the full supply of horses thus easily found. 



SOUNDNESS 



It is of great importance that the stallion should be free from all forms 

 of unsoundness or diseases that are hereditary, transmissible, or communi- 

 cable to the offspring. It is equally important that the mares bred to 

 him should be sound in the same wa3^ for not until both mare and stallion 

 used for breeding purposes are free from unsoundness can we hope to raise 

 the excellence of our horses to the degree possible as the result of intelligent 

 breeding and development. 



Many imported and home-bred stallions are unsound and transmit to 

 their progeny the predisposition to like unsoundness. This is equally 

 true of mares used for breeding purposes throughout the State, for many 

 breeders have fallen into the grievous way of considering any broken- 

 down, halt, maimed, blind, or otherwise unsound mare fit for breeding 

 purposes when no longer able to work. 



It would seem logical to expect that if we used unsound sires and dams 

 their progeny may prove equally unsound, or if one parent is unsound 

 its unsoundness may offset the soundness of the other parent and at least 

 endow the offspring with a tendency to like unsoundness. It is certainly 

 poor policy to knowingly use unsound stallions or mares and thus promote 

 unsoundness. If a stallion possesses any one of the following diseases or 

 unsoundnesses, this is usually considered a sufficient reason for refusing 

 him patronage: 



Cataract, amaurosis (glass eye), periodic ophthalmia (moon blindness); 



Laryngeal hemiplegia (roaring or whistling) ; 



Pulmonary emphysema (heaves, broken wind); 



Chorea (St. Vitus' dance, crampiness, shivering, stringhalt) ; 



Bone spavin, ringbone, sidebone, navicular disease; 



Bog spavin, curb, with curby formation of hock; 



Glanders, farcy, maladie du coit, urethral gleet, mange, and melanosis. 



