60 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



generations. Its value consists, not so much 

 in the number of generations through which 

 the ancestry can be traced to some distin- 

 guished progenitor, as in the quality or charac- 

 ter of the ancestry; and in proportion as \ve 

 approach the "top" of a pedigree that is, the 

 immediate progenitors of a given animal the 

 more important does the character of the an- 

 cestry become. 



As has been clearly shown in the preceding 

 pages, it is a well-settled fact in breeding that, 

 as a rule, the longer the line of descent in un- 

 broken succession through ancestors uniformly 

 distinguished for unusual excellence the greater 

 is the probability that that peculiar excellence 

 will be transmitted. Hence the true test of 

 the value of a pedigree is not so much in its 

 length as in the merits of the individuals that 

 compose it. 5 'OUT or five "top crosses" with 

 animals of rare individual merit make a pedi- 

 gree of much greater value to the practical 

 breeder than ten, twenty or as many more as 

 you like of animals of no special excellence. 

 The farther back this genealogy of good ani- 

 mals extends, and the more uniform the qual- 

 ity of the ancestry, the better; but the more 

 immediate the ancestry in any given case the 

 more important does its quality become. Each 

 immediate parent contributes one-half of the 

 blood or pedigree inheritance of the individual, 



