308 NAVIN ox THE HOESE. 



for sporting, racing, the carriage, and saddle. The saddle- 

 horses are fine, indeed, and of the imported stock. A few 

 Arabian horses have been imported from the desert into the 

 Southern States. From them we shall expect many genuine 

 improvements in our horses. 



BREEDING. 



To all persons engaged in raising horses, the subject of breed- 

 ing is of the first importance ; for, unless the laws which govern 

 reproduction be, to some extent, understood and acted upon, all 

 efforts to improve existing stocks, or to produce horses for par- 

 ticular kinds of service, must depend on chance, and, of course, 

 in most cases, prove unsatisfactory. The great law of repro- 

 duction, that "like begets like," obtains, with universal sway, 

 both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms of nature. But 

 every circumstance, however trifling, affecting either the male 

 or the female, will have a corresponding influence on the off- 

 spring. Every farmer knows how mysteriously his genuine 

 white wheat becomes degenerated when his neighbors pay no 

 attention to keeping a good stock of wheat. And this degen- 

 eracy is only the result of the fine dust from the bloom (called 

 2)ollen) being carried by the wind from their fields to his. As 

 a general rule, nature endeavors to impress the offspring with 

 the type of both parents. And we usually find a more or less 

 perfect blending of the qualities of both in the offspring, with 

 a decided prominence of those qualities peculiar to only one of 

 the parents. And this does not extend merely to physical or- 

 ganization, but is equally true of mental characteristics, and 

 also extends to the propagation of the diseased condition, or 

 predisposition to the diseases, of the parents. There is scarcely 

 a malady to which the horse is subject which is not hereditary, 

 or to which a predisposition, at least, may not be transmitted. 

 This is most certainly true of thick-wind, roaring, blindness, 

 spavin, curb, contracted feet, grease, and many other diseases ; 

 and particularly of viciousness. But as the male only fur- 



