SELECTIONS IN BEEEDING. 33 



bottom; but this can not be the case. Two crosses of thorough blood 

 often make a dam. capable of throAving a trotter such as Lady Thorn 

 or Dexter, no matter how insignificant the stock was anterior to that 

 point; and while the performances and the breeding of George M. 

 Patchen guarantee his blood to be beyond any lack of bottom, the 

 quitting tendency in some of the Clays proves it to be a deep-seated 

 trait of character, rooted in the mental or nervous organization, and not 

 in any lack of stamina. It is not because they can't, but because they 

 ■won't. All such traits are deep-seated and very difficult to eradicate. 



We have lately heard much of the Clay cross in the Hambletonian 

 family, that has gone far to redeem the Clays from the odium which 

 for awhile attached to them; but upon this, as on many other branches 

 of the subject, great ignorance is displayed by many of those who 

 "write for the edification of the public. A clear analysis of the so- 

 called Clay cross in each instance will perhaps show that the success 

 of the union has been in no certain deg-ree attributable to a single 

 element of the Clay blood, properly so called. Of this subject I 

 shall treat very fully when I come to the proper place to deal with the 

 branches of those families respectively, where the peculiarities of these 

 two elements have been most clearly manifested. 



In the breeding of horses — and perhaps of other animals — it must 

 always be borne in mind that the union of diverse elements involves at 

 all stages a contest for supremacy of blood forces. The peculiar 

 quahties of one blood may appear to prevail, while another may be 

 apparently overcome; yet at subsequent stages, or in different unions, 

 either owing to reinforcement or modification of these forces from 

 other causes, the relative positions of the several elements become 

 reversed — that which was predominant assumes a jiosition secondary 

 to that which had before been insignificant. A qu.ality that was 

 apparently absent, but in reality dormant and concealed, often shines 

 out with great lustre in connection with elements that seem to have 

 no apparent fitness or adaptation to calling out such peculiar manifes- 

 tations. 



It is a fact also established in breeding that certain qualities have a 

 tendency to prevail, if coming from a male, over other quahties, com- 

 ing from a female, but which do not thus assert this tendency when 

 the respective sexes are reversed. Thus the Diomed blood, concern- 

 ing which most erroneous estimates have prevailed, is an element in 

 the composition of a trotting sire whose influence at all times tends 

 toward an abatement or deterioration of the trotting quality, but 



