1883.] THE AMERICAN TROTTING- HORSE. 231 



has most scientific interest, because here we have the fullest details, 

 the most abundant records, and the most exact data. The interests 

 involved are so large, so many of the best trotters are devoted to 

 it, so many persons are interested, so many thousands, even 

 millions, are staked, won, or spent upon it every year, the records 

 of success and failure are kept with such careful labor and accu- 

 racy, and the pedigrees of the winners studied and investigated 

 with such care, that it constitutes one of the most interesting 

 studies in biology. To trot fast has not heretofore been natural to 

 horses; we are making it so by training and heredity, demonstrat- 

 ing the heredity of education and acquired habits and characters, 

 and the records of the turf are the chief data we have for an exact 

 and scientific study of the history and progress of the work. 



The Enghsh Thoroughbred is a running horse; for this he has 

 been bred and developed. He is very rarely indeed, a fast trotter, 

 and usually does not trot» willingly. But he has the general form 

 for a swift horse, and those mental qualities and instincts which 

 specially fit him for the course, and the breed of trotters that is 

 now forming is made out of a cross between this noted breed and 

 the common stock of the country, said "common stock" being a 

 mongrel mixture from various original sources, as has been already 

 pointed out. 



A new breed of animals is never made by crossing two, and only 

 two, distinct breeds, and preserving the better qualities of both. 

 I am not aware that there is any such case on record among all of 

 the countless breeds of our domestic animals. But new breeds 

 are often made of several original breeds by a selection from the 

 mongrel progeny. Numerous examples of this can be cited. 

 Also, by the use of one specially improved breed on the mongrel 

 stock of several mingled breeds. We have several examples of 

 this also (particularly among sheep), and the trotter belongs to 

 this category, so far as he constitutes a breed. 



Some thoroughbreds have shown a special aptitude to beget 

 trotters when crossed on this common stock. Prominent among 

 these stands Messenger, who was imported about 1788, and was 

 the sire of a numerous progeny, and he is believed to have exerted 

 a greater influence on the trotters of to-day than any other one 

 animal, but this has been the subject of so much talk and writing, 

 1 will not follow it any further than to say that I have no doubt of 

 the truth of the general fact. 



