years ago, and the hair and skin of the Shire is just as coarse as it was a hundred 

 years ago, and yet both can be changed through the blood in due time. 



The bone of the Shire continues to be large and porous and that of the thor- 

 oughbred fine and flinty, and blood is the only thing that will change either. 



The bluegrass and limestone stories of Kentucky and Ohio will never change 

 a cart horse into an Arabian in ten thousand years. 



An American Percheron horse importing company printed a long and tedious 

 composition in their catalogue to the effect that the Percheron horse was kind in 

 disposition because they had been fed for ages by women and children in France. 

 The writer of that statement evidently did not know that all foals except the 

 Arabians are wild and afraid of man at birth, as are also all other young of do- 

 mestic animal life, and I doubt if he knew that the Percheron, like all other va- 

 rieties of horses, become very wild if not daily handled from birth, even though 

 their great-great-great -great-grandmothers and fathers were fed three times 

 per day by French women and children. If the Percheron is more kind, as I 

 believe he is, than other draft horses, it is a blood cause — that he has more Arabian 

 blood in his veins than other draft horses. I wonder if anyone believes that a 

 Western cow pony would be any easier to "bust" (to break) simply because his 

 parents were fed and raised by women and children. 



The same environment hobbyists have stated that a white man would be- 

 come black if in a hot climate; I grant he might in ten thousand years. The 

 negro has not become white in a cold climate, except by copulation or blood 

 union with a white race ; besides, if this theory were true the Eskimo should be a 

 very white person in place of the dark-skinned race he is. 



The State of Kentucky has made a specialty of light-weight blooded horses, 

 that is, English thoroughbreds, and Arabian and Barb bloods, such as is contained 

 in their saddle horses, which was derived from A. Keene Richards' Arabians 

 along with English thoroughbreds, which means also Arabian and Barb blood, 

 also her trotting stock, which also means Barb and Arabian, her Golddust, and 

 Clays, etc., also Barb and Arabian, rather than draft or Flemish blood. 



Now, please, what gives Kentucky fine horses? Was it Flemish or draft 

 blood refined into Arabian bloods and Barb bloods by their bluegrass and the 

 name Kentucky, or was it Arabian and Barb blood in the beginning, and Arabian 

 and Barb blood all the time that did? It was blood first, last and always, of 

 course, and blood is the all-important factor along with good feed and care that 

 will produce blooded horses. Blooded steeds have never been produced by any- 

 thing but Arabian and Barb blood. Imaginary virtues of grass patches of some 

 certain little spot over that of another has never amounted to anything in horse 

 breeding unless coupled with blood and the all essential application of mating, 

 selection and strict adhesion to kindred bloods, and consanguinity. We grant, 

 of course, that horse breeding can be more successfully carried on in Ohio or 

 Kentucky than in Greenland. 



It is not only instructive, but also invigorating to read the genuine and truth- 

 ful writings of the very few who have penetrated into the very core and center 

 of a subject, and who have through a lifetime of toil, observation and experience 



20 



