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no better than Volunteer : Jay Gould is remarkable ; but 

 Edward Everett is equally noted. The dam of Ethan 

 Allen, if my memory serves me, was twenty-four years 

 old when she dropped him ; and yet I might mention 

 others as famous after their kind as the little bay stal- 

 lion, whose dams were fillies of three or four years. 

 The prejudice, therefore, against breeding mares to 

 young stallions, is not warranted by facts. No horse 

 can reach maturity, perhaps, before he is eight or ten 

 years of age ; and many horses have sired their grandest 

 colts long before they came to that age. It is also 

 known that many of the most talented men and women 

 of the world were the first or last born of their parents ; 

 and that in no respect are those born in middle age, 

 when the physical and mental powers of the parents 

 may be said to be in the state of high development, 

 superior to the earlier or later born. Nor does it seem 

 to injure in any way the colt to serve a reasonable 

 number of mares, — in his second year, from five to ten ; 

 in his third year, from ten to twenty ; in his fourth year, 

 from twenty to thirty : this I hold to be well within 

 the line of safety. A colt well put together, and fed 

 and exercised judiciously, would not, in my opinion, be 

 injured by such service, but rather improved. At this 

 time of life he is manageable, and can be educated to 

 cover the mare properly, and in gentleness of fervent 

 but controlled desire, and not in the frenzy of wild and 

 savage license. The proper education of a high-bred 

 stallion-colt for the purposes of the stud is the duty, as 



