PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 75 



lie their propagation. He becomes a student of trout ; 

 studies their structure and habits, their favorite diet, 

 and the treatment Avhich is most favorable to their rapid 

 increase and growth. All this is preliminary to the 

 grand undertaking. He invests no money, he makes 

 not a move, until the knowledge of the business neces- 

 sary to the proper understanding of it is obtained. So 

 is it in the case of fowl, sheep, and the like. Knowl- 

 edge first, investment of money next, is the rule and 

 order. It is just this rule and order that men seem to 

 reverse in their attempts at breeding the horse. With 

 no knowledge of what is needed in the sire or the dam ; 

 with no power to discriminate the qualities of either ; 

 with no ability to say that these qualities are such as to 

 warrant harmonious union of all that is most desirable 

 in either parent, — in the foal, or the reverse, — they 

 breed, not along the line of certain well-ascertained 

 principles or clearly-discerned similitudes, but haphaz- 

 ardly, as chance furnishes the opportunity, trusting to 

 luck to produce a fast colt. 



The grossness of this blunder can only be appre- 

 hended and realized when you consider that the breed- 

 ing of fast horses is not only a business, but a business 

 the principles of success in which are most delicate 

 and hidden. The man who engages in it not only 

 undertakes to deal with the outward and material, but 

 more yet with the inward and the spiritual. The 

 problem is the propagation of a high order of life ; and 

 not only its propagation, but its propagation in such a 



