38 THE BREEDING PROBLEM. 



hensible and passing strange to some of our very learned ones, who 

 have for a long time taught us horse lore, that the bare proposition to 

 ascertain by actual measure and comparison the relative proportions 

 of different animals is received as something that should stao-o-er and 

 disturb the equilibrium of these staid and deeply philosophical minds. 

 The real fact is, that there is nothing so dishonest as sheer ignorance, 

 and nothing so willfully ignorant as downright dishonesty. 



I can, in this connection, appeal to the well-known fact that our 

 great trotters or trotting sires do not, as a general rule, come from 

 the long and brilliantly drawn out pedigrees. Take the stallions from 

 some distinguished sire, and from dams whose pedigrees are six to 

 eight generations deep — every link bringing out the name of some 

 distinguished family or animal — and these are generally failures. But 

 Hambletonian, from the mare by Patriot, has produced the first trot- 

 ting sire of America; and from the mare by Bay Roman he produced 

 the renowned sire of Goldsmith Maid, Almont and Thorn dale; from 

 Princess he produced Happy Medium; froni Sally Feagles he pro- 

 duced Peacemaker. Amazonia prodviced Abdallah; and the dams of 

 Blackwood, Thomas Jeffea-son, Smuggler, Dexter, Startle, Mambrino 

 Chief, Lady Thorn, Ericsson, Clark Chief, and the most of our great 

 trotters and trotting stallions, were short-pedigree mares; Avhile, as 

 before stated, the long-pedigreed stallions have not generally been 

 very successful — almost proving that one good mare is better than 

 half a dozen, and most clearly showing that one good mare is more 

 reliable than a long pedigree, and of far more \^lue. And in this 

 connection, let me ask the question, why is it that so many of our 

 short-pedigreed and part-bred mares that have no trotting crosses 

 whatever, have been so noted as the dams of great trotters from this 

 and that particular sire? • 



Why is it that so many trotting stallions of strong and positive trot- 

 ting qviality have succeeded so well as sires with fair road mares not 

 noted for great trotting qualities, and generally coming from one or 

 tAvo thoroughbred crosses — such, for example, as the dams of Lady 

 Thorn, Lula, May Queen, Music, Lady Stout, Lucy, Pilot Jr., John 

 Morgan, Jenny, "Woodford Mambrino, Brignoli, Jim Porter, Molsey, 

 Great Eastern, Grafton, and many other superior trotters? To the 

 inind of the intelligent breeder the answer is very obvious. These 

 mares had the blood, the • stamina, the highly organized nervous tem- 

 perament, to give the trotter high quality in all these respects; and at 

 the same time they carried in themselves no positive, deeply -bred and 



