594 BREEDING OF HORSES. 



the thoroughbred. We have crossed in and out, without rhyme or 

 reason, until with the single exception of our thoroughbred horses 

 it is scarcely possible to have the pedigree of any animal four genera- 

 tions back, without finding an admixture of all the various breeds and 

 types that have ever been known. With such an ancestry it is not 

 to be wondered at that disappointments meet the novice at every 

 hand. He selects a fine-looking bay mare that will weigh 1,500 

 pounds, in moderate flesh, clean-limbed and strong, and he looks out 

 for a stallion possessing the same characteristics, that lie may couple 

 the two together to produce a first class draught horse. He has 

 been told mat like produces like so often that he believes it, and the 

 theory properly leads him to think-that out of such a pair his hopes 

 of producing draft horses may be realized. But he is disappointed; 

 the produce is not like either of the parents and he pronounces 

 breeding a lottery, and the decline or transmission of peculiarities a 

 humbug. He forgets that heredity transmits with certainty only 

 that whicji is firmly fixed in the ancestry and he loses sight of the 

 fact that his fine large bay mare was herself the product of mixed 

 ancestry. ***** flie possession of the required qualities 

 in the sire and dam was an accidental circumstance, and intelligent 

 breeders with a knowledge of the fact would not expect that these 

 accidental qualities should be transmitted with certainty." These 

 words are full of the soundest sense and are an unanswerable argu- 

 ment in favor of the exercise of intelligence in the business of breed- 

 ing live stock. 



Why fine Horses do not Always Reproduce Them- 

 selves A sire or dam possessing some strong characteristics will 

 not transmit them if they are accidental. It may be found 

 developed in the off-spring, but then it would be an accident as well. 

 A stallion is known to have been very fast or very stout and breed- 

 ers have supposed that they have only to send mares deficient in 

 either quality and they would ensure its being developed in the pro- 

 duce. If the mare happens to possess, among her ancestry, stout or 

 fast lines of blood, the produce will display the one or the other, if 

 she is put to a horse possessing them; but if on the contrary, the 

 lines of the dam are all fast, or all stout, no first cross with a sire 

 possessing opposite qualities will be likely to have any effect, though 

 no doubt there are some few exceptions to this as to all other rules. 

 The instances in support of this position are numerous and conclu- 

 sive. 



What Mares are Best for Breeding Neither a large 

 nor a small sire will perpetuate himself, unless descended from a 

 breed which is either one or the other. Many a mare has produced 

 colts larger than herself, but investigation has almost invariably dis- 

 closed that her ancestry has contained animals above the average 

 size. Moderately small mares are generally stronger of constitution 

 than large ones, and for this reason provided they are of the right 

 mould they will answer stud purposes better than others. 



