THE ARAB RULE. 77 



account for it, and I go to work to account for it. My opin- 

 ion is, — I may change it to-morrow ; I would not give a cent 

 for a man wlio would not change his opinion on horse matters 

 as easily as he turns over in bed at night, but, to-day, I am 

 inclined to swing back to the Arabian principle of breeding, 

 — that the foal always follows the sire. 



To account for it, in the first place, the Arabs always 

 select their dams with great care. Now, it may be, that the 

 word "best," as applied to their dams, you do not apply to 

 yours. That is, the dam that you would consider the best, 

 may not be the best in the eye of the Arab breeder. What 

 is the best dam in the eye of the Arab breeder ? May it not 

 be the one that will allow its foal to bear the stamp of the 

 horse? I think so. I have two dams on my farm that could 

 not be sold by a religious man for over three hundred dollars, 

 in a matter of trade, and yet three thousand dollars could not 

 buy either of them. Why? Three colts have come out of 

 each, and every colt has looked precisely like its sire ; has put 

 its feet, when eating its oats, precisely like its sire ; has smelt 

 of the water, and muzzled round it before drinking, precisely 

 like its sire ; has done everything like its sire. The dam 

 simply carried it, as a mother holds her baby in her lap, and 

 never marked it at all. Now, may not the old Arabs have 

 such facts in mind ? May they not, when they laid down the 

 maxim, "The foal always follows the sire," have had this in 

 mind, that there should be no dam bred to a sire that would 

 interrupt the sire in propagating himself. I know a man that 

 has a mare that has foaled two colts. He bought her for $87. 

 And yet she is invaluable. Why? Because each of the colts 

 that came from her are not only like the sire in a general 

 sense, but they are the sire in miniature. In interior habits 

 of the stable, in the way they move about in the stall, the 

 way they toss their heads, and the way they feed and drink, 

 they are the sire over again. 



You may take all my fashionable, high-bred mares out of 

 my stable, if you will leave in their places such mares as 

 that, for you have eliminated for me in doing it, half the dif- 

 ficulty out of the problem of breeding ; namely, the difficulty 

 which the temperament, structure and habits of dams bring 

 to the breeder. For instance, I could select an animal that is 



