224 LOWER ANIMALS. 



pedigrees of the fastest trotting horses in the world and published 

 in cxtenso in "The Horseman," Chicago, Dec. 2, 1902, shows that 

 a stallion is at his best at some age beyond twenty. The reason 

 why this does not appear in examining the pedigree of any horse is 

 because stallions of such great age have produced very few foals, 

 and it is impossible to find any horse descended from a line of such 

 old sires. The nearest approach to it is in the case of the greatest 

 of all stallions — Hambletonian. His own sire was 26 and his great- 

 srandsire was 28. Cresceus, the fastest trotting stallion in the 

 world at the present day, is the son of a horse 23 years old, and he 

 has another [23] and a [22] in his immediate ancestry, though 

 not in the straight male line. 



REPRODUCTION EARLIER IN COMMON HORSES THAN IN BLOODED 



STOCK. 



What has been given clearly shows that age plays an important 

 part, and that the parents do something more than simply transmit 

 germ plasm identical with that which they received. The result 

 also shows what is best for the horse from a purely physical stand- 

 point. These ages apply, however, only to fine blooded horses and 

 do not represent what actually takes place with horses in general. 

 From a variety of sources I estimate the average age of reproduc- 

 tion for all horses to be about seven years for the dams, and eight 

 or nine years for the sires. 



CATTLE. 



The cow is of about the same size and weight as the horse, 

 and is domesticated under almost identical conditions, but the cow 

 is not classed as among the intelligent animals. She comes to the 

 breeding age a little earlier, and does not last as long as the mare. 

 "It has been our custom for many years, for dairy purposes, to 



