22 THE HORSE OP AMERICA. 



As the investigation of disputed,, spurious and fraudulent pedi- 

 grees was a prime necessity in order to reach safe and honest 

 grounds upon which to build up a breed of trotters, much of my 

 time through all my editorial life was devoted to this kind of 

 investigation. From the first page of the first volume of the 

 "Register" I was deeply impressed with the importance of having 

 all pedigrees absolutely correct, and this impression grew into a 

 vital conviction that without this a breed of trotters never could 

 be established. I soon found that I had accepted from some 

 breeders of the very highest respectability a goodly number of 

 pedigrees that were thoroughly rotten in their extensions. This 

 taught me that I must study the moral fiber of breeders critically, 

 as well as their pedigrees, and that from the highest to the 

 lowest. Some men are honest from principle and because it is 

 right to be honest, while others are honest because "honesty is 

 the best policy." Some men are dishonest because of ignorance, 

 others because they were born cheats, but the most dangerous of 

 all rogues is the man who will utter a false pedigree and then 

 prove it by trained witnesses who, for half a dollar, can remember 

 whatever is necessary and forget whatever might be against their 

 employer's interest. By this kind of evidence a man can prove 

 anything. Not very long ago a man proved that a certain mare 

 came out of a certain other mare, and when that was shown to be 

 impossible he turned round and proved (?) that she was out of 

 another mare, and there was just as much truth in the one as the 

 other, and not a single word of truth in either. So long as there 

 are men in the world there will be rogues among them, but the 

 intelligence of the public in breeding matters has so greatly ad- 

 vanced that many an honest man would begin to doubt his own 

 sanity if he were even to think of breeding in lines that he was 

 once ready to fight for as the only right and successful way to 

 breed. The brainless advocacy of "more running blood in the 

 trotter," was substantially the basis of the whole brood of dis- 

 honest pedigrees, against which it became my duty to wage war; 

 but to-day no intelligent man in all the land can be found to ad- 

 vocate any such balderdash unless it be in the foolish support of 

 thoughtless opinions previously expressed. 



The subject of "How the Trotting Horse is Bred," is a most 

 interesting one because it is entirely new in animal economy and 

 is distinctively American. The initial thought that opened the 

 -door to the practical and scientific consideration of the subject 



