74 THE PERFECT HORSE. 



are in the line of sequence, and not of accident. But 

 here we have had few, if any, impartial and intelligent 

 students of the problem. The most intricate and deli- 

 cate of all endeavors to propagate great excellences by 

 the harmonious union of desirable qualities, possessed 

 in part by the sire and in part by the dam, has been, 

 for the most part, undertaken by men too ignorant or 

 prejudiced to grasp comprehensively the rudimental 

 principles of success. Hence it is that breeding in 

 America has been an innocent kind of gambling ; that 

 is, a venture in which good luck, rather than an under- 

 standing of and attention to the business, was relied 

 on for success. Hence many of our fastest horses are 

 sent to us annually from the barn-yards of unknown, 

 and, so far as principles of breeding go, ignorant farm- 

 ers. We find them — as Dutchman was found, in a tan- 

 dem-team, drawing bricks ; or behind a drover's wagon, 

 as Flora Temple was discovered — without name or 

 fame. They come unheralded by any expectation, the 

 result of no plan, no knowledge, no wisely -invested cap- 

 ital. This seems an indisputable proposition, therefore, 

 — that one of the causes of the financial failures which 

 have attended attempts at breeding is to be found in 

 the gross ignorance of the breeders themselves in the 

 principles of propagation. This is the more to be won- 

 dered at, because, in all kindred branches, knowledge is 

 universally admitted to be the great essential of success. 

 No one, for instance, will invest money in trout-culture 

 until he has examined into the principles which under- 



