172 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



it as much as possible. Such is the recent wise decision of the agriciiltural 

 eocicties ot Great Britain, founded upon tliorouf:;h research and careful analyza- 

 tion of all the facts possible to be obtained. From these remarks it must not 

 be understood that breeders who wish to improve their horses can do so by 

 picking the worn-out, weedy, cast-offs of any and every racing stable. Some 

 writers seem to fancy, when I he thorough-bred stallion is recommended as a 

 means of purifying the blood of American horses, that all thorough-breds are 

 alike for that purpose. This is simply absurd. When speaking of the cart- 

 horse, it is by no means meant the rack of bones that staggers in front of the 

 ragman's cart; and when of the blood stallion, it is meant one which has not 

 faileil to stand the most vigorous test. If our stables ai-e to be replenished by 

 the descendants of English racers, the most successful of them should be se- 

 lected. To produce the thorough-bred, all circumstances of feeding, stabling, 

 grooming, and general care must tend to encourage the qualities that make the 

 great racer a type of his genus. The real thorough-bred is an animal which 

 shall stand the test of training and racing successfully, and can reproduce him- 

 self or a better. This is the horse avc want, and it is simply hypercriticism to 

 say that the present running horse is not thorough-bred because his remote 

 ancestors may have been a mixture of the Arabian, the Barb, and the Turk. 

 Six to eight generations of racers that can fulfil these obligations will result in 

 as perfect a specimen of the horse as can be desired or procured. The vital 

 importance of breeding from the finest proven thorough-bred animals must now 

 be clearly seen, yet, after the care and trouble of procuring the true foal, genu- 

 ine and unblemished, we have accomplished little if we do not know how to 

 raise him in a manner worthy of his high pedigi'ee and mission. It is the easiest 

 matter in the world to spoil good colts by careless or ignorant treatment. 



Take, for instance, two Durham calves from cows of equal purity, and sired 

 by the same bull. Send one into "green fields and pasture new," stable it in 

 cold weather, and give it all it can need for its health and comfort. Turn the 

 other out to pick its living on a bleak and rocky barren, to shiver with cold, 

 and to search wearily for the few blades of sickly grass that grow in granite 

 clefts. Then at the end of the year compare them. The first will be a fat, 

 Btuidy, handsome felloAV, sleek, bright, erect of head, straight of limb, courageous 

 and intelligent; the other, a miserable, melancholy runt, without pluck or beauty, 

 lean, small, and showing scarcely a trace of blood. Take two more calves of 

 the same parentage, and turn the fat one's brother otit upon the hills, and the 

 lean one's brother into the rich pasturage and warm stables ; feed them precisely 

 as their relatives were fed before, and it will be found that the brothers look 

 notliing alike, while those of different parentage look like brothers. Now, try 

 to fatten them all alike. The two that were well treated will thrive, but the 

 others, though they may improve, will never attain their proper size, or be any- 

 thing but runts ; nor will they be fit for breeding purposes, comparatively, and 

 it is in nowise different with the horse. 



A great deal of the stamina and ability of the growing foal must be taken into 

 bis system through the stomach. As beef and mutton are the most strength- 

 ening food of man, so oats hold the same prominent place with the horse. He 

 must be fed high at an early age if he is to run fast and endure. As soon as 

 he can eat he should be fed liberally upon a gruel made of ground oats and 

 cow's milk ; as he gets older, ungi-ound oats without milk should be given him, 

 not in his mother's feed-box, but in a separate one for himself. In summer, 

 while he must be permitted to run at large every night, to roll, to run, and eat 

 fresh grass, he should be stabled during the day from 10 a. m. to 5 p. m., on 

 account of flies and heat, and his diet of oats must not be suspended on account 

 of his having grass. Of late years, the beet trainers have become so profoundly 

 impres^^ed with this necessity for generous feeding, that they object to receive 

 any horses into their training stables which have been raised in the ordinary 



