GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 57 



and-in breeding. That with certain kinds of 

 purely-bred stock this course of breeding has 

 been so extensively practiced as to very greatly 

 impair the vitality of the animals so bred no 

 intelligent, careful observer will deny- while 

 in others, where selection has constantly been 

 made with reference to hardiness, strength and 

 endurance where close in-breeding has been 

 avoided, and where there has been no un- 

 natural forcing and pampering, the pure races 

 or breeds have no peers in these valuable qual- 

 ities. The lack of hardiness complained of in 

 purely-bred stock where it exists is due to a 

 peculiar course of breeding not justly charge- 

 able to the fact that the animal is a purely- 

 bred one, and not necessarily following the 

 course of breeding essential to the creation of 

 a breed. The thoroughbred race horse, or 

 "blood horse," the purest and best established 

 of all our breeds of domesticated animals, is a 

 pointed illustration of this fact; and the reason 

 is obvious. With the breeder of the race horse 

 vitality has always been a paramount consider- 

 ation, as upon this depends the ability of the 

 horse to last in a long and closely-contested 

 race; hence, a course of breeding that had a 

 tendency to impair the vital forces has never 

 found favor with breeders of these horses. 

 None of the practices that have combined to 

 impair the strength and vigor of purely-bred 



