576 AMERICAN HORSES. 



of running blood destroys the trotting inheritance, why is 

 a Httle good ? " 



Mr. J. H. Sanders wisely remarks in his well-thought- 

 out book, Horse Breeding (1893) : " In no department of 

 stock-breeding is the influence of heredity and of patient 

 selection with a view to the transmission and improvement 

 of a desired quality more apparent than in the breeding 

 of the trotting horse. Sixty years ago the American 

 trotting horse, as a breed, was unthought of ; and one that 

 could trot a mile in less than three minutes was a wonder- 

 ful animal ! But the ability to trot fast was a desirable 

 quality and breeders sought to perpetuate it. . . . The 

 experience of the last decade has demonstrated beyond 

 question that by confining our selections for breeding 

 purposes to the descendants of the well-known trotting 

 families, the possibilities of producing fast trotters are 



infinitely greater than by going outside In almost 



every case of ' breeding unknown,' we have found that 

 the dam was a ' fast trotter.' " 



In order to keep the attention of my readers as closely 

 as possible to the special subjects of this book, I have 

 carefully refrained, up to the present, from touching on 

 the subject of breeding ; but the extraordinary success 

 of interbreeding in the case of Hambletonian, forces me to 

 depart from the rule which I have hitherto observed, 

 especially as a cutting from an American newspaper {The 

 New York Herald, I believe), contains extremely valuable 

 remarks on this very interesting subject. In England, 

 breeders of all kinds of animals are aware that their 

 adoption of close interbreeding is generally accompanied 

 by loss of vitality and of fertility, although it has a strong 

 influence in establishing special characteristics and uni- 

 formity of type ; but few are aware that the drawbacks 

 in question can be obviated to a great extent by change 

 of environment. This is well explained by the American 

 writer, who tells us that " Darwin long ago gave it as 

 his opinion that the injurious effects of close interbreeding 



