HOW THE TROTTING HORSE IS BRED. 491 



would come through the campaigns ready and fit to propagate 

 their species. 



In breeding for a particular purpose or qualification all experi- 

 ence goes to show that the elements entering into the new crea- 

 ture must be carefully selected as possessing the quality that we 

 seek to propagate. Nobody would think of breeding a running 

 mare to a trotting horse if he was seeking to breed a running 

 colt. No thoughtful and intelligent man would think of breed- 

 ing a running horse upon a trotting mare if he were seeking to 

 breed a trotting colt. The runner to the runner and the trotter 

 to the trotter has been demonstrated ten thousand times as the 

 right way. The cross-bred or half-and-half-bred animal may be 

 something of a trotter or something of a runner, doing neither 

 well; and this uncertainty never can become a certainty as to 

 which it may be till you try him. The evil of half-and-half 

 breeding does not cease with the life of the animal, for the divi- 

 sion in his own inheritance will manifest itself in his progeny for 

 generations, or till it is bred out. But, strange as it may seem, 

 there are still a few old men living who, from pride of opinion ad- 

 vanced in their younger days, still maintain that trotting speed 

 must come from the "thoroughbred" and "point with pride" to the 

 great horse Palo Alto as the complete illustration of their belief. 

 In relation to the breeding of Palo Alto I will here tell a little 

 story, premising that I neither accept it as true nor reject it as 

 false, for I know nothing about it. The late Mr. William H. 

 Wilson, of Cynthiana, Kentucky, was in many respects a remark- 

 able man. He was full of energy and push, and his brain seemed 

 to teem with formidable ideas, chiefly relating to his prospects, 

 and the management of his own business. He was intelligent in 

 horse matters, and very well informed on local horse history. He 

 did a great deal of work for me in the way of straightening out 

 tangled skeins, and in tracing obscure pedigrsss. In this way I 

 came to know Mr. Wilson very well, and as I never found him 

 wrong on these questions I came to place great confidence in his 

 word and his judgment in all pedigree matters that he had in- 

 vestigated. Some time about 1889, probably, he asked me to in- 

 vestigate the pedigree of Dame Winnie, the dam of Palo Alto, 

 for, he said, he had every reason to believe she was not by Planet, 

 but by a trotting-bred horse that he named, but that name has 

 escaped me. I replied that I had not time then, but I would 

 think about it. Some months afterward he was again in my 



