^48 THE PEACTICAL HORSE KEEPER. 



through a series of generations. Recently-acquired qualities 

 are ephemeral ; they are transmitted with difficulty and de- 

 stroyed by slight opposing causes. Peculiarities of form, size, 

 colour, and constitution, with qualities, vices, and defects of 

 all kinds, descend through remote generations, and it is not 

 rare to observe in a foal distinctive characteristics identical 

 with those possessed by grandsire or grandam, though absent 

 in its proximate parents." 



In breeding, therefore, the breeder should seek to combine, 

 by carefully selecting the sire and dam_, what he desires in the 

 produce. It is a mistake to suppose that defects are easily got 

 rid of in breeding ; for instance, that putting a horse with a 

 well-shaped head to a mare with a large or unsightly head, will 

 ensure the foal having a good head. Nothing is more un- 

 certain or more unlikely, and it is the same with other defects, 

 and also with some hereditary unsoundnesses and tendencies to 

 disease. To breed pure-bred horses, both sides — sire and dam 

 — must be pure-bred ; and to ensure sound and durable stock, 

 the parents must be sound and vigorous; and not only so, 

 but their parents, again, should have been in the same state, 

 for there is a strange tendency to reversion towards defects and 

 weaknesses which one generation may escape, but which will 

 manifest themselves in a succeeding one. 



No matter what kind of horse is to be bred — racer, hunter, 

 or heavy draught-horse — the best of the kind should be selected 

 to breed from ; the most perfect in form for the purpose re- 

 quired, with a sound constitution, free from hereditary disease 

 or defect, and good-tempered. It is by the system of careful 

 and long-continued selection that our best breeds of horses 

 have been raised ; this, and appropriate food and stable manage- 

 ment, has given us the mammoth draught-horse, the unmatch- 

 able hunter, and the fleet racer and steeplechaser. 



What is called " in-and-in breeding," — that is, breeding from 

 animals closely related to each other by family — has been. 



