STALLIONS, BROOD MARES AND FOALS. 89 



ous Shire or Clydesdale with the hope of the 

 produce turning out a winner on the race course. 

 The general characteristics of the hreed to which 

 the parents belong will be transmitted to the 

 progeny; and in proportion as the breed is 

 firmly established and uniform in its charac- 

 teristics so will the produce be uniform in its 

 character. Whatever has been "bred in the 

 bone" will be transmitted. A pair of Shetland 

 ponies will produce a Shetland pony with un- 

 erring certainty; because in all the character- 

 istics which distinguish the ponies from other 

 breeds of the horse kind they are uniform; but 

 we cannot count with certainty upon the color 

 of the hair or the individual peculiarities in 

 many minute details, because in these minor 

 points uniformity in the race has never been 

 established. But whatever has been firmly 

 fixed as a characteristic of the breed, whether 

 it be peculiarity of gait, form, color, size, dis- 

 position, or speed, will be transmitted with a 

 certainty in proportion to the degree of uni- 

 formity which has been attained in that par- 

 ticular in the ancestry. 



The horses of the United States are of a 

 heterogeneous character a conglomeration of 

 every breed and type of the horse kind in the 

 known world. Until within a comparatively 

 recent period no intelligent effort was made to 

 keep any of the breeds pure except the thor- 



