388 AGRICULTURE AND THE HORSE. 



ten have been remarkable. Either one of this five, 

 different as they were from each other, would satisfy 

 any man who wanted a horse to fill the place to which 

 the selected one was adapted. While they were not 

 all alike, they were all good, and reached the mark 

 aimed at ; some rising far above it. Apply this expe- 

 rience to a community engaged in breeding horses ; as- 

 sure that community, that, with careful and ambitious 

 breeding, they can be sure of having valuable horses in 

 one half the cases around them, and that the other half 

 will be at least remunerative, and you offer all the in- 

 ducement that reasonable men ought to ask in any busi- 

 ness in life. This point, then, I have reached; and, 

 while I am not willing to state the prices I have 

 received for the good horses I have bred and sold, I 

 can only say, that had I lost the five poor ones, and 

 received nothing for them, the receipts from such of 

 my good ones as I have sold are sufficient to place my 

 horses alongside of my best cattle and sheep on the 

 score of profit alone. They have paid me well : and 

 they ought ; for, in order to produce them, I have been 

 obliged to learn wisdom from many fiiilures of my own 

 and my neighbors, to incur the expense of breeding 

 from gift mares (the most expensive of all mares) 

 against my judgment, and to devote my mind to the 

 business in a way, which, in any sphere in life, is en- 

 titled to success. Let no farmer doubt, then, that he 

 can breed a good horse, and do it profitably, if he will 

 exercise judgment and skill, — not a bay horse always, 



