TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 463 



Pony breeding offers a good field for profit to those who 

 are in a position to reach the trade for Shetland, Welsh, or Hack- 

 ney ponies. The breeding of polo ponies, however, is as yet 

 a very uncertain undertaking comparable to breeding trotters. 



Selecting a breed. After the type of horse has been chosen, 

 it is next in order to decide what breed of that type shall be 

 selected. The choice of a breed is not so serious or important 

 a matter as the selection of a type or the selection of the indi- 

 viduals which are to compose the stud. It will depend largely 

 upon the personal fancy of the breeder, although in some types 

 of horses in certain localities, one breed may be so much liked 

 or another breed so much disliked as to make it advisable for 

 the new breeder to conform to the choice of the community, 

 if it is possible to do so. He can then profit from the exper- 

 ience and advice of his neighbors, he will benefit from a greater 

 number of local sales of his stock, and there will be more stallions 

 to select among when mating his mares. After deciding what 

 type shall be produced, the mistake is sometimes made of select- 

 ing a breed to work with which does not rightly belong to that 

 type. For example, efforts are sometimes made to produce 

 the carriage type from trotting-bred stock, or from a saddle 

 breed, and while many excellent heavy-harness horses have 

 sprung from these breeds, they have been largely in the nature 

 of accidents in breeding, and ordinarily they cannot be pro- 

 duced in this way with enough regularity to make such a plan 

 of breeding advisable. 



Selecting the individuals. We now come to the matter of 

 selecting the individuals which are to compose the stud. First 

 of all, they must be sound; and this is a matter to which many 

 farmers pay too little attention. Buyers offer the best prices 

 for sound stock, and the farmer has too frequently sold his 

 young mares that were sound, and has retained those with 

 sidebones, ringbones, spavins, curbs, etc., for breeding pur- 

 poses. This is radically wrong and a very short-sighted prac- 

 tice. Soundness is of very vital importance in every type of 

 horse, and especially in animals used for breeding purposes. 

 The individuals should also be true representatives of the type 

 to which they belong. Whether or not the brood mares should 

 be purebred depends on the amount of capital available and 

 on the type of horse selected. If possible, it is preferable that 

 they be purebred, registered mares. However, some very 

 profitable work in producing drafters for the market has been done 



