CROSS-BREEDING. 87 



dence that it embraces all the excellencies that have appeared in our 

 past or present exj^erience in breeding trotters. The utter failure of 

 the colt, either as a trotter, or a reproducer of trotting excellence, is 

 at length reached, but only serves to impress liis breeder with the pro- 

 found conviction that the whole business is a matter of chance — a 

 lottery of the most absolute uncertainty. He is assured by some of 

 the learned ones that trotters go in all forms — and he overlooks the 

 important fact that they also go in all sorts of ways, as the legitimate 

 and inevitable result of their multifarious forms — and that these ways 

 of going, and these diverse forms are the legitimate and inevitable 

 result of physical conformation, and nerve or mental traits that are 

 not only dissimilar, but often operate in dissimilar ways in breeding — 

 often operate against each other — are often inharmonious in their 

 combinations, and, as a consequence, in their results. Hence, the end 

 of his great hopes and wonderful expectations is a sad and unprofita- 

 ble failure. 



We cross-breed too much, and do not sufficiently study the ques- 

 tion of harmony in the physical and nerve traits that we combine in 

 o\ir efforts to produce the trotter. That one conformation or one 

 mental organism may be modified by combining with it another of 

 dissimilar elements, is most certainly true; and this can often be done 

 with the best of results — but it can only be done by a union of ele- 

 ments that will, when united, or while uniting, tend or work in the 

 direction of harmony toward a point that contains the conditions of 

 successful operation. By this method, a defective jDhysical conforma- 

 tion may be relieved, and in great part cured; and a disturbed, or 

 deficient, or illy balanced temperament or nerve organism may be 

 quieted or stimulated to the point or degree called for in the level- 

 headed and strong-willed trotting champion. 



In some families, the anatomical or muscular conformation may be 

 defective or deficient; the front cannon-bones may be too short or too 

 long — the same may be the case with the forearm, or the thigh, or the 

 length of sweep from hip to hock. There are families which possess 

 deficiencies or excesses in each of these particulars; all of which can, 

 to a great degree, and perhaps to the degree requisite for complete 

 success, be corrected by judicious selections and crossing; but the first 

 condition essential to such a process, is a knowledge of the exact state 

 of the defect which it is necessary to correct. This involves the study 

 and knowledge of diverse physical and mental proportions and confor- 

 mation; a matter which is so exceedingly novel, almost incompre- 



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