THE HORSE BREEDING. 551 



A GRADE is the produce of a pure-bred animal of a recognized 

 type, and a " native," or mongrel or scrub, or animal of unknown 

 breeding, or of no established breed. A colt from a common 

 mongrel mare by a Percheron horse is a grade Percheron or 

 half-blood. This half-blood bred again to a pure Percheron 

 would give a grade Percheron or a three,-quarter-blood. A calf 

 got by a shorthorn bull on a native cow is a grade shorthorn. 

 A calf got by a shorthorn bull on a Hereford cow is a cross- 

 bred calf. 



"Breeding-in-line" is pairing animals of fixed family-traits 

 of same breed. A Bates bull bred to a Bates cow of same line 

 of blood is breeding-in-line. But breeding a Bates bull to a 

 cow of the seventeen importation would be out of line, though 

 bull and cow are both shorthorns. Pairing a trotting-bred mare 

 of the Mambrino family with a Canuck trotting-stallion would 

 not be considered breeding-in-line, though both animals trot. 

 That might better be termed "crossing" or "making a cross." 



Doubtful Advantages. THE ADVANTAGES of cross-breed- 

 ing have been largely written up, and many things claimed for 

 it are purely imaginary. Crossing a high-bred Mambrino or Ham- 

 bletonian rnare with a Canuck or Morgan stallion might give a 

 more docile colt and firmness to hoof and leg, and give an element 

 of constitution that would counteract the effeminacy that may 

 come from too long and intimate in-and-in breeding; but the breed- 

 ing of the stallion would be so much inferior to that of the mare 

 that improvement in the lines named would hardly be expected. 



The law generally accepted is, the sire should be better bred 

 than the dam, or expressed in a general term, "bred up and 

 never down." In cross-breeding the common and accepted prac- 

 tice is to use the type of male we aim for in the offspring. If 

 size and bone are to be increased, we choose the blocky, com- 

 pact, short-jointed draft-stallions to cross on the common mares. 

 This method prevents the error common, of making extreme or 

 violent crosses. It is unreasonable and contrary to the experience 

 of centuries to expect a symmetrically developed animal from an 

 overgrown, coarse brute on a light-boned, narrow-chested mare, 

 that lacks vigor and substance as well as breeding. 



