Breeding of Agricultural Horses 



39 



also warn you, discard a mare which ap- 

 proaches being hatchet-headed, pig-necked, 

 roach-backed, or goose-rumped, cat-hammed, 

 very cross-ankled, or pigeon-toed ; such 

 shapes being too far gone to ever hope to 

 remedy the glaring defects which doubtless 

 have been produced by something worse than 

 careless breeding. One thing amongst others 

 which has urged me to recite the foregoing 

 examples, has been to shew the principles 

 adopted to grow big things, as the breeder's 

 aim ought to be to meet the requirements of 

 the day ; for with double-furrow ploughs fast 

 coming into use, horse-engines requiring 

 speed, good-sized horses for town work re- 

 quiring size, not at the expense of activity, 

 compactness, and quaHty, ought to be kept 

 in view. I would further add, that in pair- 

 ing a lengthy mare with an under-sized but 

 compact horse in comparison to her, in the 

 produce will be seen, in the one crossing, the 

 lengthy proportions of bone combined with 

 the stoutness of the other; but to enlarge 

 the size, not losing sight of compactness 

 — in starting with a short mare, it will take 

 something like three crossings of gradually 

 lengthened sires to bring that about. The 

 male distinctly influences the form of the off- 

 spring in draught-horses, but the higher in 

 the equine race the more the mare seems to 

 reverse that order. This accounts for the 

 Arab valuing far more highly the breeding 

 form of the dam than he does the sire for 

 stud purposes. 



PREPOTENCY OF THE MALE. 



In selecting a staUion for a mare, the 

 breeder's first start should be to become 

 familiar with her defects in conformation, and 

 also her good points, and then working up 

 to a given model, had in view, seek to over- 

 come defects by extra good points in the 

 horse, but avoid extremes, or you will be 

 foiled ; rather take two crossings than too 

 long a stride at once. Where the breeder 

 gets into the fix of having two stallions of 

 similar type, give the preference to the one 

 whose pedigree stands the higher. I will 

 acknowledge that what I call a jump in the 

 dark may be taken, thus, either a difficulty in 



arriving at a knowledge of the parent's 

 descent, or a false one may be given, and so 

 damage the breeder's best constructed plans. 

 Surely here it is that a stud-book would be of 

 some service in tracing strains, and not only 

 so, but it would be a tribute of respect justly 

 due to the painstaking individuals who have 

 carefully cultivated the better famiUes brought 

 down to our time. That the colour of the 

 male in animals predominates in the off"spring 

 there can be little doubt; but with the Suffolk 

 horse, in which some five different tinges of 

 the chestnut colour prevail, viz., dark chest- 

 nut, dark red, bright chestnut, silver-beamed, 

 and light chestnut, it need not be wondered 

 at that a horse having various tinges in his 

 escutcheon should occasionally throw a paler 

 or darker shade than himself in colour, that 

 tending to a dark should indicate hardihood, 

 the pale or light chestnut fostering grease. 



IMPROVING THE BREED OF CART-HORSES. 



In selecting suitable sires shirk not a little 

 trouble, be not turned aside from so doing 

 by the present saving of a sovereign or so, 

 or because the horse's owner happens to be 

 the first or thirty-second cousin to you. I 

 am persuaded that real help in improving 

 our horses would arise from an established 

 spring show of stallions. One of the rules 

 of the Dishley Society forbade any member 

 from shewing rams only to members of that 

 society on certain fixed days, before shewing 

 the rams to non-members. The beneficial 

 result of this was (for it was like playing the 

 cards into one's own hands) that the most 

 useful rams were reserved for the society's, 

 special use. Fortunately for us the staUion 

 owner cares not to reserve the exclusive right 

 to the horse's services, although in the show 

 field this often militates against him. As a 

 very successful breeder and exhibitor put it, 

 it was a comparatively easy thing to take first 

 honours, but to maintain that position was 

 not so easy, descendants of his own horses 

 coming out to battle against him. I said 

 established, I should have said re-established 

 spring shows, for I find in an old county 

 chronicle, bearing the date of 1790, a report 

 of Woodbridge April show of entire horses,, 



