44 THE HORSE BOOK. 



perience with it. I commend it to the atten- 

 tion of all breeders and men who stand stallions 

 and jacks. I count the syringe as good as the 

 capsule in every respect save the danger of 

 possible infection of clean mares from those 

 that are diseased unless the syringe is kept in a 

 thoroughly sterilized condition. The operation 

 itself is an old one, but as at first it was con- 

 fined exclusively to the human subject it is not 

 strange that it did not gain wide publicity until 

 a comparatively recent date. So far as I know 

 the mare is the only one of our domestic farm 

 animals on which the operation of so-called arti- 

 ficial impregnation has been performed. 



There are many fool notions concerned with 

 the mating of stallion and mare. For instance 

 some people think that the stallion "is to 

 blame ' ' if a mare has twins. The mare alone is 

 responsible for the number of foals she pro- 

 duces. If two eggs are matured about the same 

 time and the mare is covered, the chances are 

 that both will be fertilized. There are more 

 spermatozoa ejaculated at one service of the 

 horse that there ever will be eggs matured by 

 a mare in her whole lifetime. The stallion can 

 have nothing to do with the number of foals a 

 mare may produce at a birth, except that he fer- 

 tilizes as many eggs as her ovaries ripen. A 

 mare is not more likely to have twins to a horse 

 than she is to a jack, though some folks think 

 she is. 



