FOUNDATION STOCK 211 



save on limestone or chalk formation, should be subjected to a good 

 dressing with lime and salt. 



No man should undertake the breeding of horses who has not first 

 acquainted himself with the natural influences which operate in modify- 

 ing descent. 



He will then realize how difficult it is to obtain a uniform result from 

 what appears to be the same set of circumstances. 



He may rely on each variety being true to itself that shires will 

 produce shires; hackneys, hackneys; thoroughbreds, thoroughbreds, &c. ; 

 but he cannot rely on one or another to reproduce offspring of a 

 uniform standard of excellence. Moreover, the same dam and the 

 same sire mated through a succession of years will frequently be found 

 to yield produce essentially dissimilar from each other in form, colour, 

 endurance, and temperament. On this account breeding has been said to 

 be a " lottery ", and I do not know how it could be better expressed. 

 Influenced in a large measure by causes which are beyond our control, and 

 which we but vaguely comprehend, the element of chance must necessarily 

 enter largely into the enterprise. Notwithstanding this, there is ample 

 experience to show that the uncertainty incidental to horse-breeding may 

 be greatly curtailed by the adoption of proper methods. 



The natural tendency of both animals and plants in the course of 

 propagation is to vary either in one or more of their parts, or as a whole, 

 and this will be more especially the case in those specimens which have 

 been rapidly forced to a higher state of development by artificial selection 

 and treatment. 



Beyond this there also exists a tendency, in these improved forms 

 especially, to revert or throw back to a more or less remote ancestor, 

 and in doing so the offspring may depart from the parental type by losing 

 the more recently acquired and much-coveted characters. It is on this 

 account that "back breeding" so forcibly calls for careful scrutiny and 

 consideration in stud-management. 



With these facts in view, it is not difficult to understand why produce 

 so frequently differ from each other, and from the parents from which 

 they spring, and why the fundamental belief that " like produces like" 

 is so frequently untrue. Many a breeder has experienced the disappoint- 

 ment of producing an unshapely, worthless brute from an alliance of his 

 choicest stock. 



Derby-winners and the commonest of platers have frequently descended 



