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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



said : I regret there is not a larger attendance, which is, 

 no doubt, owiniT to the assizes being opened at Shrewsbury 

 this day, which deprives us of our president and several in- 

 fluential members. We are met here, as the circular has 

 informed you, to hear a lecture from Mr. Evans ou the 

 principles that should guide the farmer in breeding stock, 

 having more especial reference to horses, a most important 

 subject you will admit; and I have no doubt, from the ex- 

 perience we have had of Mr. Evaus's lecturing powers, that 

 the subject will receive at his hands the elucidation which 

 its importance deserves. I therefore beg to introduce Mr. 

 Evans to your notice. 



The lecturer began by contrasting the present Shropshire- 

 down sheep with their ancestors thirty years ago, and he 

 showed how that the great improvement had been made by 

 breeding upon some scientific principles. Yet he was per- 

 suaded that many follow the new system who are not 

 acquainted with the principles. They do it because it is 

 the fashion, and answers the purpose better — not knowing 

 the why and the wherefore it should answer better. He 

 should therefore draw their attention to Nature's laws of 

 breeding. The same law is applicable to all animals, only, 

 of course, requiring certain modifications which their good 

 sense might easily direct. It is a lamentable fact that 

 horse-breeding is very much neglected throughout the 

 country, especially hunters and carriage horses; nor has the 

 draught horse had the attention he deserves. He (Mr. 

 Evans) should, therefore, more especially point out how to 

 apply the peinciples of breeding to horses than to other 

 animals. Mr. Robert Smith, in his excellent " Report on 

 the E.xhibition of Live Stock at Chester," published in the 

 last volume of the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, says 

 that " The breeding of the horse is a national subject, but 

 as yet has not been treated as such. There is a want of 

 system in our arrangement and management." He quite 

 agreed with Mr. Smith. Our fairs are overstocked with 

 horaes, but so shapeless that it is difficult to say for what 

 purpose most of them are adapted. lie thought he might 

 safely saj' that the average value of four-fifths of our 

 four-year-old horses, of all sorts that we see in the 

 fairs, is hardly £20 to £25, and it is difficult to sell 

 many of them at any price. Now, taking into consideration 

 their cost of breeding and rearing, with all risks and so on, 

 no wonder, then, breeders say they do not pay. The 

 average value of the remaining one-fifth it is difficult to 

 say ; but they sell readily for from £40 up to almost any 

 amount you can reasonably conceive. Now, I ask those 

 breeders who complain, why do they breed horses at all ? 

 " Oh," they sa}-, " to consume the grass properly we must 

 have cattle, sheep, and horses too — they all differ in their 

 bite so." Very well, then, if you breed horses of some sort, 

 why won't you breed good ones ? Does an ill-shaped horse 

 consume less food than a good one ? Is it cheaper to breed 

 poor tlian good horses.* My motto is this always : " If it 

 is worth my while to do a thing at all, it is worth my while 

 to do it as well as I possibly can ;" and I have no hesitation 

 at all in saying that it would pay you as well as anything to 

 breed real good horses. Some of you may perhaps say, as 

 I have heard others say, that in breeding cattle and sheep 

 you are seldom disappointed ; the progeny is always what 

 you expected ; while in breeding horses you Lave no idea 

 •what the colour or shape of the colt will be until you see it, 

 it is quite a lottery. It may be this : it may lie that. 

 You hope the best, and the worst will not disappoint you ; 

 for you do not believe in horse-flesh. Thank you, my dear 

 friend, that is a candid confession at any rate, which goes 



so far as to prove that you have never practised horse-breed- 

 ing upon right principles. Before I came here I lived in Lin- 

 colnshire. There, good horses are comparatively plentiful ; 

 much better than those bred in Shropshire, taking all toge- 

 ther. You excel in sheep ; 1 wish you to excel in horses too 

 I wish to see dealers flocking from ail parts of the world to 

 Shropshire for horses. I wish to see the tide turned from 

 Lincoln and Horucastle fairs to Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth ; 

 or, at any rate, to see the trade as strong here as there. It is 

 not impossible; the country is naturally well adapted for 

 breeding purposes ; you only want the system. Don't despair, 

 a patient perseverance will overcome all difficulties. Let us all 

 then, this evening, enter into the subject in good earnest, de- 

 termined to sift the matter thoroughly, and to profit by the 

 investigation. He went on to notice that the first great law 

 of nature in breeding is, that like should produce like ; if it 

 was not for this law, which is constant and without esceptioD, 

 a mare might produce a calf, a sow produce a dog, a bitch pro- 

 duce a lamb, &c. ; but it must be accompanied in our mind 

 with another law, the law of variation. The child is not 

 always like its parent in every respect, and sometimes not hke 

 its species, as when a lamb has two heads or six legs, &c., as 

 we often find. Then we call it a monster. This diversity 

 forms the problem of hereditary influence, and it is for the 

 causes of, and reasons for, the variation that the breeder must 

 enquire, and make himself acquainted with, so that he may, as 

 far as possible, modify them. One of the causes of variation 

 is what is called " breeding back." It is often a source of 

 disappointment to the breeder that when he puts a well-formed 

 female and a well-formed male, he gets an informed colt or 

 calf, and of quite a different colour to what he expected. If 

 you enquire into the pedigree of the parents you will find the 

 child answering in every respect to the description of an an- 

 cestor. This is the law of atavism. It is this that makes 

 many say that horse-breeding is a lottery. However, if you 

 breed properly you have little to fear. Pure and thorough- 

 bred animals comparatively seldom" breed \ back, or, however, 

 disappoint their owners in doing so. By thorough-bred is 

 meant those whose ancestors were for a long time of the same 

 shape, and adapted for the same purpose as themselves. The 

 more the animals have been crossed the more subject are they 

 to breed back, and more the difference of shape in crossing 

 the more likely is breeding back to prove a disappointment. 

 A case was related to illustrate this law. How is it to be ex- 

 plained? The "Westminster Review" very properly says, 

 " It is to be explained on the supposition that the qualities 

 were transmitted from the grandfather to the father (the other 

 sex may convey it equally well), in whom they remain latent 

 or were marked by the presence of some antagonistic on con- 

 trolling influence, and thence transmitted to the son, in whom 

 the antagonistic influence being withdrawn they manifest them- 

 selves. Mr. Singer, let us say, has a remakable aptitude for 

 music, but the influence of Mrs. Singer is such that the 

 children, inheriting her imperfect ear, manifest no musical 

 talent whatever. These children, however, have inherited the 

 disposition of their father in spite of its non-manifestation ; 

 and if, when they transmit what in them is latent, the influ- 

 ence of their wives is favourable, the grandchildren may turn 

 out musically gifted. In the same way consumption or in- 

 sanity and other hereditary diseases seem to lie dormant for a 

 generation or more, and in the next flashes out with the same 

 fury as of old." This should make you very careful in breed- 

 ing stock, and to ascertain that not only the sire and dam are 

 free from spavin, curbs, &c., but that their ancestors were not 

 subject to any hereditary affection, add not only that they were 

 free from hereditary evils, but that they possess the same good 



