f 



436 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



In regard to breeding, many things in the customary sys 

 tern of operations are objectionable in the extreme. The 

 manner of waiting upon the horse upon occasions of his 

 service to the mare, with a crowd of idle boys standing 

 about, and an attendant to direct the horse's movements, 

 merits the opprobrium of all right-thinking persons. It not 

 only shocks every sense of propriety, but it is unnatural and 

 injurious. The practice deserves universal execration. Other 

 portions of the brute creation are allowed to choose their 

 own times and seasons for copulation, and to conduct mat- 

 ters in their own way, as they are abundantly able to do 

 without any further guidance than the promptings of in- 

 stinct alone. Tlje horse should be privileged to enjoy the 

 same freecjom. 



In precise terms, both the horse and mare should be al- 

 lowed to run together in the same field. This, of course, 

 should be retired from the highway, in some pasture which 

 may easily be selected, away from the usual routes of the pass- 

 ers-by. Here the mare may be affbrded the pleasure of the 

 horse's society for several days — a circumstance which will 

 be greatly to the advantage of both of them, and still more 

 to their future progeny. 



There is a radical error in the prevalent mode of conduct- 

 ing all these proceedings. We lay it down as an almost in- 

 variable rule, that the foal will partake chiefly of the con- 

 stitution and disposition of the sire, while his form and size 

 is mainly derived from the dam. It is the operation of this 

 law which indicates the necessity of other treatment in re- 

 gard to the horse. There are, by far, too few horses kept as 

 breeders, and they are taxed beyond all reason and decency. 



The horse is injured by being kept too close in a dark 

 ' stable, without sufficient exercise in the open air and the 

 range of the pasture ; and then, too, his stable-feed has a 

 tendency to heat the blood, which is a condition that often 

 affects the genital organs materially. Constant confinement 

 renders his disposition fierce and intractable, and the depriva- 

 tion of the daily society of the mare makes the matter still 



