ERRORS IN CROSS-BREEDING. 403 



I here repeat, in verbis, part of what I said in Chapter I, on the 

 subject of cross-breeding. Nothing- is so common as a pedigree 

 parading crosses of all the noted trotting families, which the o^vner 

 exhibits with entire confidence that it embraces all the excellences 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 

 his breeder with the profound 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 imjjortant 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 dis- 

 similar ways in breeding — often operate against each other — are often 

 inharmonioiTS in their combinations, and, as a consequence, in their 

 results. Hence, the end of his great hopes and wonderful expecta- 

 tions is a sad and unprofitable failure. 



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

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

 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 elements 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 physical conformation may 

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

 illy balanced temperament or nerve organism may be quieted or stim- 

 ulated 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 suc- 

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

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



