112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



had been inferior to the mare, if he had been a " scrub," so 

 called, a low-bred, cold-blooded horse, and the mare had 

 been a high-bred animal, with hot, powerful, and strenuous 

 blood, inherited from a line of ancestors of similar quality, 1 

 doubt if they would have had any such proof to give from 

 their experiment. The strong parent, the strong blood, the 

 high lineage, will prevail in breeding, however you may pre- 

 pare the parents at the time. And then comes in the fact 

 that you rarely get a progeny that is like either your dam 

 or sire. They throw back whole generations in the short 

 generations of animals like the dog and the horse. You no- 

 tice that in families of men. Take families like the English 

 aristocracy, some of whom have portraits of their ancestors 

 dating back several generations; and in France also, it is 

 no uncommon thing to see a child of the present generation 

 that seems a reproduction of some ancestor whose portrait 

 hangs on the wall, whose bones have mouldered in the tomb 

 for three centuries. 



Mr. Williams. It would be a sufficient answer to my 

 question to suppose that the sire and the dam are of equal 

 strength of blood. In the first place, unless they were both 

 of good quality and well-bred, I do not think it would be 

 for my interest, or any other gentleman's interest, to breed. 

 But I may have a choice in regard to the progeny : I may 

 wish to repeat one or the other. The question I put is. Pro- 

 vided they are of equal strength of blood, what would be 

 likely to govern the character of the progeny ? 



Mr. Russell. It was considered b}^ Sir Tatton Sykes 

 that he did govern it in the experiment I have cited. 



Mr. Williams. I have had a little experience in that 

 direction ; and I asked the question because I wished to be 

 indorsed if I could be : otherwise, I should have said that it 

 was only an accident. I took a mare to " Robert Bonner," 

 owned by Col. Russell ; and, immediately after the arrival of 

 the mare, she was served, and was then taken home. The 

 result of that was, that I had a colt that almost precisely 

 followed after the blood of the mare ; not particularly the 

 individual characteristics of the mare, but the characteristics 

 of the breed which the mare was from. The year following, 

 an accident happened to the mare, and I was unable to take 

 her to Col. Russell's place, and he was kind enough to send 



