No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 117 



owners of sucli horses as the law is intended to eliminate, while it 

 is given unqualified endorsement and is promptly complied with, by 

 the owners of stallions against whose worth, as sires, no exception 

 can be taken. 



The fact that stallions must qualify under certain conditions pre- 

 scribed by the law, and failure to meet these fixed conditions make 

 it impossible, under the law, to secure a license, does not seem to be 

 well understood by many applicants who have been accustomed to 

 simply record their horses with the prothonotaries, as was required 

 by the old law which the present one repealed. 



Some comment has also been made on the fact that horses not of 

 pure breeding are granted a license. It is true that the stallion of 

 unknown or mongrel breeding is a most uncertain proposition and 

 the majority of them are, no doubt doing more harm than good in 

 their community. But, there are some high grade stallions which are 

 not eligible to registration and to which, on that account, it is impos- 

 sible to issue a pure bred State license certificate which are them, 

 selves good individuals and the sires of of colts which are uniformly 

 good and out sell, in many instances, the get of pure bred contempor- 

 aries. So long as these conditions exist and until we have pure bred 

 stallions of proven worth, as sires, to fill all these places, it would 

 be manifestly unfair to owners of the grade stallions and a positive 

 detriment to the breeding interests to retire them all from service. 

 The time will undoubtedly come when the grade stallion will not be 

 recognized; but that ideal situation has not yet been attained. 



The feature of the law which is subject to the greatest criticism, 

 is that which si)ecifies the conditions upon which pure bred and 

 grade licenses are to be secured and the wording of the certificates 

 of the grade license. Pure 'bred is an arbitrary term, and, as 

 applied in this instance, literally means registered. A stallion 

 which is not registered with an authorized association is not en- 

 titled to a pure bred license certificate and must therefore receive 

 a grade certificate which specifically states that said horse is* not 

 of pure breeding and therefore not eligible to pedigree registration. 

 It is assumed that all eligible horses will be registered, as the\ 

 should, and that their failure to comply with the requirements of 

 the different registry associations must be due to some lack of proof, 

 at least, of the purity of their breeding. Pure breeding in this 

 connection does not involve the matter of ancestry as much as it 

 does the eligibility standards of the different registry associations. 

 If a greater variety of certificates were provided for by the law, so 

 that just discrimination could be made between the horse which is 

 deprived of a pure bred license on account of some technical error or 

 neglect in registration or transfer, or on account of his having a 

 small percentage of alien blood, and the stallion which is either 

 unknown as to breeding or of such ancestry as to make what is 

 known to his disadvantage, the grade license would be much less 

 offensive to many owners whose horses cannot qualify for a pure 

 bred license. 



There have been some instances where the privilege of the owner 

 to use his own affidavit of soundness in lieu of a veterinarian's 

 certificate has been abused, but most of these cases have eventually 

 come to light and have been dealt with accordingly. As a safe 



