10 INTRODUCTION. 



this subject, and as thousands of men otherwise intelligent 

 into whose hands this book may come have but an 

 indefinite idea of the answer to the question, a reply will 

 not be out of place. 



Thoroughbreds may be divided into three classes : First. 

 Those that trace to Eastern parentage, without any admix- 

 ture ; these are the true thoroughbreds. 



Second. Those which cannot be traced to Eastern parent- 

 age, but, after many good and authentic crosses, are lost in 

 ' ' time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the con- 

 trary." 



Third. Those which possess a certain and known portion 

 of good blood, sufficient to allow them by usage to be 

 classed with thoroughbreds, and, being so classed, by usage 

 called thoroughbreds. Unfortunately, the usage has not 

 been uniform, and the tendency has been too much to lower 

 the standard, not because the performances or merits of 

 animals justified it, but because it enabled breeders often- 

 times to put off their part-bred horses at higher prices a 

 temptation too strong for very many otherwise most honora- 

 ble gentlemen to withstand. 



The Hon. Allen J. Davie, of North Carolina, an importer 

 and breeder of distinction, is represented to have used the 

 following language, in a letter to P. N. Edgar, about 1830 : 



" It takes four crosses of thoroughbred horses to produce 

 a full-bred mare, and six crosses to constitute a thorough- 

 bred." This attempt to create a distinction, that to the pop- 

 ular mind is without a difference, is not peculiar to Mr. 

 Davie, nor to the breeders of horses alone. It is too harsh 

 to say the many attempts to establish this new class of 

 so-called "full breeds " had their origin in sordid motives ; 



