384 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



There are many everyday evidences of the ill-consequences of deficient 

 quality in horseflesh. You hear a horseman say that a horse has soft legs 

 and he points out an individual inclined to fill about the skin of the fetlocks 

 to show windgalls which extend up the sheath of his back-tendons, and 

 whose hocks are inclined to be puffy throughout. If he gets a bruise or 

 injury of any kind to the skin of his legs the consequent swelling is apt to 

 extend and is inclined to remain. Abrasions, cuts, cracks and scratches heal 

 very tardily. Concussion and direct injury to bone are very much inclined 

 to result in bony enlargements, such as splints that spread out and have not 

 well defined limits. Standing in the stable too much readily produces stock- 

 ing of the legs. There is a predisposition to greasy legs. Feet are inclined 

 to be fiat, large, easily bruised and horn is brittle. 



These tendencies show coarseness of tissue and low organization, a meager 

 blood supply and inactive nutrition. Horses with "quality" also develop 

 wind-galls and splints, if subjected to sufficient cause, but their character 

 differs from those of the coarse horse in being clean cut and well defined 

 and not having the same tendency to spread out. A horse with quality may 

 have a bog-spavin, but it will show as a well defined prominence and not as 

 a round puffiness of the hock throughout. 



Draft horsemen talk ' 'quality" just as much as or more than those who 

 have to do with the light breeds. The difference in the ' 'quality" of indi- 

 viduals of the draft breeds is just as well marked as in the light breeds. 

 Take for instance a Clydesdale or Shire, either of which will have a consid- 

 erable quantity of long hair on the back of his legs which is often referred 

 to as "feather," If this hair is found to be fine and silky, not coarse and 

 wiry, you will find it possessed by an individual that shows "quality" 

 throughout. His skin will not be coarse and beefy, his legs will be fluted, 

 his bone will have a tendency to flatness, showing density of structtire. The 

 hair of his mane and tail will be fine like that at the back of his legs. The 

 eminences and depressions formed by the bones of his head will be compara- 

 tively finely chisled. He, in fact, shows "quality" when compared to other 

 members of the same breed that are equally well bred as far as possessing 

 the characteristics of the breed and as far as the studbook is an indication 

 of breeding. This is a further example of the fallacy of the view that 

 "quality" and breeding are the same thing. 



