546 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The lack of quality In a horse is particularly well shown in the skin 

 of his legs. The tendency to the development of cracked neels, stocked 

 legs, mud fever and grease is very evident on slight provocation. Sires 

 deficient in quality are apt to transmit to their progeny the tendency to 

 what are called soft-legs, in which there is not only the inclination of 

 the skin to swell up from little cause, but windgalls, puffy sheaths of 

 tendons and boggy hocks are easily induced. If then we accept these 

 statements with regard to quality, as it would appear that every practical 

 horseman must, we must admit that coarseness or lack of quality Is by no 

 means an unimportant factor in contributing to hereditary predisposition 

 to unsoundness. 



Temperament is the last of the four heads into which we divided the 

 predisposing causes of hereditary unsoundness. Although it must be 

 admitted that it has an influence we look upon it as the least important 

 of the four. The nervous horse that jumps and gets excited on slight pro- 

 vocation, the anxious horse that is always up in his collar and against 

 the bit are more taxing on the physical mechanism than easier-going 

 liorses. We perhaps cannot afford quite to ignore this question of tem- 

 perament, in selecting sires and dams, but if the legs and feet have suf- 

 ficuent substance and are made up of a good quality of tissue, they will 

 generally stand any taxing that may result from a high strung tempera- 

 ment. 



PROFIT FROM A GOOD MARE. 



DAN CUMMINS, MONONA COUNTY, IOWA, IN BREEDER'S GAZETTE. 



I read with much interest the letters in your journal in regard to boy^ 

 leaving the farm. I beueve in the saying a "natural-born farmer"; if the 

 boys are not turned to farming, what is the use of trying to keep them 

 there — they are no good. My mother was a "pure-quill" farmer, and t 

 must be too. I had plenty of chances to leave the farm, both good and 

 bad, but I naturally wanted to stay. I always loved the thought of fine 

 horses, hogs and cattle. My mother was for a woman the best judge of a 

 horse I ever expect to see; it seemed to me she could look a horse in the 

 face and tell all his faults. While she lived I would not think of buying 

 or trading for a horse without her opinion, no matter if the horse was any 

 account or not. 



When my father decided to leave the farm two years ago this spring 

 he had one brood mare to sell. Her dams for five generations had been 

 owneu here on this farm by him. I knew her and her family thoroughly; 

 she was a three-quarter Percheron, heavy with foal, five years old, and 

 weighed around 1,850 pounds. I bought- her, paying $200 for her. She 

 dropped a colt in less than a month from a registered Percheron stallion. 

 The day he was eight months old I took him and his dam into town to 

 have them we%hed; he weighed 870 pounds, she weighed 1,870 pounds. 



