144 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Third, The influence of the male and female upon the embryo is partly 

 dependent upon the condition of each and upon the strength of the nervous 

 system of each, and other conditions at time of copulation. 



Fourth, Acquired qualities are transmitted same as natural ones, whether 

 they belong to sire or dam. 



Fifth, That sire and dam will produce their like or the mixed qualities of 

 their ancestors. 



Sixth, The purer and less mixed the breed the more likely it is to be trans- 

 mitted unaltered to the offspring. 



Seventh, Breeding in-and-in is not only beneficial but is absolutely necessary 

 to a certain extent, and it is the only way by which we can regulate the tem- 

 perament, bodily and mental power, color, and conformation of the offspring 

 with any degree of certainty. Great caution, however, should be used under 

 this rule that it should not be so close as to be incestuous. 



Eighth. The first impregnation seems to extend to subsequent ones, and Mr. 

 Stonehenge says upon this subject : 



"In the series of examples preserved in the museum of the college of sur- 

 geons, the workings of the male quagga when united with the ordinary mare 

 are continued clearly for three generations beyond the one in which the quagga 

 was the actual sire ; and they are so clear as to leave the question setttled 

 without a doubt." 



Ninth, We adopt Mr. Stonehenge's Rule 16, "When some of the elements 

 of which an individual sire is composed, and in accordance with others making 

 up those of the dam, they coalesce in such a kindred way as to make what is 

 called a 'hit.' On the other hand when they are too incongruous, an animal 

 is the result wholly unfitted for the task he is to perform. 



By adhering six to eight generations to the principles of breeding we have 

 laid down, the breeder can to an almost certainty produce a type or family of 

 horses of nearly the same size, conformation, and color. 



This is done by high breeding and careful selections. This is not only 

 desirable but profitable. Under these rules it is as easy to breed a black ani- 

 mal as it is a white one, and if you use white, black, chestnut, bay, and brown 

 parents, you will be likely to have ring, speckled, and streaked offspring. If 

 you use nothing but sound, healthy, and vigorous stock for breeding purposes, 

 you will be likely, as a rule, to have that kind born unto you, and vice versa. 



We will now illustrate our theory under the rules we have given. Suppose 

 we desire to produce a distinct family of trotting horses, of a uniform color 

 and size, with sufficient bone, tendon, and muscle. We would look about and 

 find a thoroughbred stallion near sixteen hands, with kind and docile disposi- 

 tion and with good knee action. We would like him all the better if he were 

 capable of winning the English Derby; in other words, would like him to be 

 capable of being a great performer as a race horse, and if he had been tried 

 in the stud and had proved himself a sire capable of reproducing himself or 

 nearly so, should consider him of inestimable value, and besides we would 

 want him broken to harness (our English cousins would consider this a great 

 sin and disgrace), that he might be educated to the new business or purpose 

 for which he and his progeny are about to be used, that he might transmit 

 his new acquired gait to his offspring. We should want him faultless in shape 

 and build, with large knee, large, clean hock, round ancle, sound feet, flat 

 cannon-bone, large around the girth, long arching neck, oblique shoulder, 

 long hip, short back, long underneath, with fine, thin, long, tapering ear, 

 broad forehead, wide between the jaws, fine, small muzzle, fine coat, and of a 



