MORGAN HORSE: HIS RELATION TO BREEDING. 303 



of ingenuity in silliness, cannot be beaten. His reason- 

 ing runs thus: Sherman Morgan drew one-half of his 

 blood from Justin Morgan, his sire ; his son Black 

 Hawk, one-eighth ; his son Ethan Allen, one-sixteenth ; 

 his son Daniel Lambert, one-thirty-second ; his sons, 

 one-sixty-fourth : therefore, as a son of Daniel Lambert 

 has only one-sixty-fourth of old Justin Morgan's blood 

 in his veins, he is no descendant of his; indeed, no 

 Morgan horse at all. This is, indeed, brilliant reason- 

 ing ! Suppose we illustrate it with a sample of the 

 human family. The first Murray — that is, the head of 

 my family — that came to America was named John 

 Murray. His son Jonathan drew only one-half of his 

 blood from his father; his son John, one-eighth; his son 

 Calvin, one-sixteenth ; his son Dickinson, one-thirty- 

 second ; his son William, one-sixty-fourth : therefore I, 

 because I do not have but one-sixty-fourth of the 

 original John Murray's blood in my veins, am no Mur- 

 ray at all. That is going back on one's relations with a 

 vengeance ! The fact is, — and all attempts to elude 

 and evade it are silly at the start, and, if repeated, de- 

 testable, — the fact is, the male side of the family gives 

 the name to the family, with horses as with men. As a 

 matter of justice, I might as consistently call myself 

 Munger, because my mother's name was that, as that 

 Mr. Taggart's famous horse should be called Abdallah, 

 ignoring the fact, that, in the male line, he runs straight 

 back through Farmer's Beauty, GifFord, Woodbury, to 

 old Justin Morgan. I call him a full Morgan horse. So 



