12 INTKODUCTTOX. 



exceptional cases for the twenty years preceding I have 

 been more indulgent, and for animals of the last century the 

 rule has been still less rigidly applied. If a mare of five 

 crosses is bred to a thoroughbred, her produce is an 

 improvement. If a horse of five crosses is bred to fifty 

 thoroughbred mares, there are fifty foals, better than the 

 sire certainly, but worse than their fifty thoroughbred dams. 

 Thus are fifty animals produced with a taint, and a year 

 lost to fifty good mares. The philosophy of breeding ap- 

 pears to fully justify the distinction which is made between 

 the sexes. 



THE APPENDIX. 



The establishment of a standard of blood requisite for 

 admission to the body of the work imposes the necessity 

 of providing a receptacle for animals below that standard, 

 which will be found in the shape of an appendix, arranged 

 alphabetically without regard to sex. This appendix, as 

 will be seen, is wonderfully voluminous, embracing about 

 thirty-eight hundred named animals, a larger portion of 

 which are made up from the racing tables previous to 1839. 

 Many of these animals are of undoubted blood ; but, in the 

 reports from which they are gathered, no attempt is mado 

 to give their pedigrees in full, and they have not been found 

 elsewhere in the field gleaned. By reproducing these ani- 

 mals in this accessible and convenient form, a large number 

 of them may be extended by parties interested, and thus 

 secure a place in the second volume, but the great majority 

 will doubtless remain where they are. 



FROM WHAT AND HOW THE COMPILATION IS MADE. 



In September, 1829, John S. Skinner, Esq., of Baltimore, 

 commenced the publication of -'The American Turf 



