48 CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK AND COMPLETE STOCK DOClUii. 



upon man, even for the water he drinks. Unfortunately he is too often 

 dependent upon ignorant and brutal "helpers" who, the moment the 

 eye of the master is turned, shirk their duty and the animal suffers. 

 Hence the absolute necessity that all large stables should possess in the 

 person of the foreman a competent head, and one whose sympathies are 

 with the helpless an-Mials under his charge. Such a person will not only 

 earn his wages fully, l)ut will save largely to the owner every year by his 

 constant watchfulness and '-are. Artificial breeding also gives rise to a num- 

 ber of diseases, peculiar in themselves, and which may only be guarded 

 against by intelligent care. Among the most serious of these are abortion, 

 and all that class of diseases incident, to animals kept in confinement in large 

 numbers, and which, with other diseases of domestic animals, will be 

 treated of separately in appropriate departments of this work. 



IX. Opinions Belating to Breeding. 



In tracing the history of horses, and all that relates to their care and 

 treatment, we shall find various opinions relating to breeding. The sys- 

 tems of in-and-in-breeding, and cross-breeding, each have intelligent and 

 successful advocates. In-and-in-breeding may be defined as being the 

 breeding together for generations, of closely related members of a fam- 

 ily of animals. For fixing a breed and for perpetuating the special ex- 

 cellences sought, there is no doubt of the soundness of the practice. It 

 is in this way and l)y careful selection of parents that all new breeds are 

 established and fixed. What distinguishes the successful from the un- 

 successful breeder, is the knowing, or not knowing, just how to select, 

 how long to breed in, and in departing from the rule, so to select the 

 new sire, that there may be no violent change of characteristics. For it 

 is a well established fact that long-continued in-breeding reduces the 

 constitutional vigor of the animal while it is fixing excellencies for per- 

 petuation. Bakewell, Collins, Bates, Webb, and many other emi- 

 nent breeders of modern times, have been most successful in this direc- 

 tion, with cattle and sheep. The modern breeds of swine, also, owe 

 their chief excellencies to this system, though in them it is modified by 

 more frequent infusions of far related blood, since swine are peculiarly 

 liable to degeneration of the vital forces, scrofula, and other diseases, 

 supposed to be due to too close inter-breeding of near relations. 

 X. In-Breoding of Horses. 



In horses, in-and-in-breeding has never been practiced to the same ex- 

 tent as with cattle. The horse is bred chiefly for his muscular p'jwers 

 and endurance. To this is required to be added, beauty of form, and 

 as supplementary to speed and endurance, great lung po^\ 3r and constitu- 

 tional vigor. Hence, when a sire poesesses t>>«ae merits in an eminei^ 



