BREEDING. 7 



There are many substantial reasons to be 

 adduced, why the breeders of the northern 

 counties exceed all other parts of England, 

 in the consistency , strength, fashion^ and syyii" 

 metry of their stock ; for, exclusive of their 

 natural advantages of the most luxuriant 

 pasture and temperate climate for such pur- 

 pose, they are rigidly attentive to every 

 component minutiae of the whole, not only to 

 the shape, make, bone, strength, and uni- 

 formity of both sire and dam, biit likewise 

 to hereditary defects, blemishes, and defor- 

 mities, rejecting every probability of stain or 

 injury, divested of the paltry penurious con- 

 siderations by which the conduct of many are 

 regulated, who have been breeding all their 

 lives, without the satisfaction of having ever 

 once had a horse or mare of figure, fashion, 

 or value in their possession. 



This is a fact so clearly established, it will 

 come home to the remembrance of every 

 reader, when taking a mental survey of his 

 rural neidibours, amongst whom he will 

 perfectly recollect some one or ?nore so invin- 

 cibly attached to the merits of a bli?id stal^ 

 lion, or the virtues of his own spider-legged 



