Fe. Sats es eas i , 
THE NATIONAL HORSE OF AMERIOA, ‘TA1 
least as important as the sire. ‘‘ Selection,” says Youatt, “‘enables 
the agriculturist not only to modify the character of his stock but 
co change it altogether, It is the magician’s wand by means of 
which he may summon into life whatever form and mold he 
pleases.” Darwin, in his Origin of Species, says cogently; “We 
can not suppose that all the breeds were suddenly produced as per- 
fect and as useful as we now see them; indeed, in many cases we 
know that this has not been their history. The key is man’s power 
of accumulative selection; nature gives successive variations; man 
adds them up in certain directions useful to him. In this sense he 
to have made himself useful breeds.” How important, 
duce, 
That acquired habits or capacities are strengthened by develop- 
ment and use is undeniable; and equally undeniable is it that b 
disuse acquired habits and capacities are lost. Darwin declares that 
‘as modifications arise from and are increased by use or habit and — 
are diminished or lost by disuse, so I do not doubt it has been the , 
instincts.” A very striking exemplification of the truth of this prop- 
osition is furnished in the history of American horse breeding. 
The case is so directly to the point, and so interesting, that I here 
transcribe the account as published years ago: 
In Abbeville district, South Carolina, in the last century, Mr. Richard A. Rapley 
was a large breeder of thoroughbred horses. He was an Englishman, and brought 
over a number of the most fashionably bred stallions and mares that could be found 
in Great Britain. His taste and fancy led him to prefer the race-horse for all pur- 
poses of life on his estate, but he never trained or raced any of them, Believing 
in blood as he did, he was scrupulously careful in all the crosses he made; 
and thus he had a great herd of pure-bred animals that had never seen a race 
course. He kept up his fancy for many years and through several generations of 
horses, At last the attention of racing men was called to this elegant stud of pure- 
bred animals, and numbers of them were selected and tried ; but with all their purity 
of lineage and superior elegance of form they were found not to be race-horses, 
The inheritance of speed had been neglected till it was lost for want of use of it, 
To sum up, the following propositions may be accepted without 
qualification as principles that govern the transmission and reproduc- 
tion of special qualities in all the animal world: (1) Acquired habits 
and instincts are transmissible and become hereditary. Therefore 
(2) habits of action may be created and established by training and 
use, and these habits become an hereditary instinct in the descend- 
ants of the animals in which they were established. (3) This heredit- 
ary instinct is increased, intensified, and strengthened by develop- 
ment, and is therefore transmitted by developed animals in an 
increased and intensified degree. (4) On the other hand, by non- 
development and disuse the instinct becomes weakened, and finally, 
in a series of generations, is lost. 
I need not point the application of these principles in the business 
of breeding trotters. Their essence is, breed the trotter from parents 
that are trotters individually and trotters in inheritance. 
Many superficial writers on the horse, trotter or runner, treat him 
simply as a machine, and forget that he has a mental organization. | 
That the disposition to trot fast and the disposition to run fast are just 
as much hereditary instincts as is the disposition of the pointer dog to 
point no intelligent, thinking man will deny. I do not for a moment 
underrate the duty to be performed by the physical organization; but 
just asthe muscles governing the fingers, the wrist, and the arm of the 
