WANT OF CAPITAL. 75 



any credit for him whatever. I take it as one of those mys- 

 teries I cannot fathom. I can mention the names of half a 

 dozen Americans, known in literature and state craft, whose 

 names are familiar to you, whose fathers and mothers, grand- 

 fathers and grandmothers, could not, if I may so speak, pro- 

 duce them. They were, as I hold, new creations, magnificent 

 original types of men and women. 



Well, from such causes, New England breeding of horse 

 stock is a failure, because it cannot predict what the result of 

 breeding will be. Let us look for a moment to discover, if 

 we can, the cause of this result. My idea is that it is, briefly 

 put, ignorance. I think at the core of almost all failures 

 you will find ignorance as the cause. I think at the core of 

 this failure that we are making in breeding you will find 

 lack of knowledge as the real cause. For instance, how 

 rarely you find any practical studentship brought to this mat- 

 ter of breeding ! How can you expect an ordinary farmer, 

 who never thought a moment on this matter, who never read 

 a book upon this subject, who never looked upon it even as a 

 matter which he had need to study, — nay, how can you take a 

 man who has never studied anything, who never thought 

 about anything, as students think upon matters, — and by 

 such men the majority of our colts are being bred in New 

 England, — how, I say, can you take such a man, and expect 

 that he will make a success in breeding, when breeding means 

 the finest and most painstaking studentship that we have to 

 engage in to-day ? That interrogation answers itself. 



So we pass on to the next point, that, in addition to igno- 

 rance, lack of means has acted as a cause of failure. Breed- 

 ing requires money. What right have you to rule this great 

 industry out of the companionship of kindred industries? 

 What right have you to make, as the essential of all success in 

 every other branch of industry, capital, and not make capital 

 essential to all success in breeding? If a man goes into the 

 dry-goods business, to make a success of it, he must have 

 capital, must he not? If he goes into the onion-raising busi- 

 ness, he must have capital, must he not? If he goes into the 

 grocery business, he must have capital, must he not? But 

 here are men taking up this business of breeding with no 

 capital whatever. A dam that is worth fifty dollars, perhaps. 



