SELECTION OF A MARK TO IJRKEL) FROM. 537 



instance of success, in obtaining a perfect foal. The farmer 

 should pay attention to the kind of mare he is to breed from, 

 as well as to the merits of the stallion of which he makes 

 choice. " If he has an under-sized, or a blemished or unsound 

 mare," says Youatt, " let him continue to use her on his farm. 

 She probably did not cost him much, and she will beat any 

 gelding;, but let him not think of breeding from her. A 

 sound mare, with some blood in her, and with most of the 

 good points, will alone answer his purpose. She may bear 

 about her the marks of honest work (the fewer of these, how- 

 ever, the better), but she must not have any disease. There is 

 scarcely a malady to which the horse is subject that is not 

 hereditary. Contracted feet, curb, spavin, roaring, thick wind, 

 blindness, notoriously descend from sire or dam to the foal."* 

 But this is too wide a subject for our limits. It is enough 

 to have called attention to it as a necessary point of view, 

 besides regard to the feeding of the mare when breeding.-)* As 

 bearing on this subject, the following opinion of an eminent 

 authority deserves consideration : " The farmer who keeps 

 one or two 'nag' mares is the only person who can be said 

 to rear hacks without loss ; and he only does so because he 

 begins to use them for his own slow work as soon as they are 

 three years old." J 



Before considering how far theory may be applied to the 

 feeding of the breeding-rnare, it will be useful to review what 

 practical men say on the subject. The following sensible 

 observations are from Stonehenge : " When the mare is in 

 foal, if not intended to be kept at work, she should be turned 

 out in good pasture, but it should not be so rich and succulent 

 as to disagree with her stomach, or make her unwieldy from 



* Youatt, ' The Horse,' p. 92. 



f See also Walsh (Stonehenge), ' The Horse in the Stable and the Field,' 

 pp. 137-155. 



t Stonehenge, * The Horse in the Stable and the Field,' pp. 137-155. 



