144 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



edge extends all of our really great men have 

 descended from mothers that possessed more 

 than ordinary mental power; and a writer of 

 fiction who has within a few years past attained 

 a considerable degree of prominence asserts 

 that the world has not yet produced a single 

 exception to this rule. Greatness springs from 

 greatness and every living thing brings forth 

 young after its kind. And especially in the 

 matter of soundness do I insist that the mare 

 which is selected for the breeding stud should 

 be unobjectionable. There is scarcely an ill to 

 which horseflesh is heir that is not transmissi- 

 ble by inheritance. The precise disease itself 

 may not be inherited, but the constitutional 

 weakness that makes this or that organ pecu- 

 liarly susceptible to disease is clearly a trans- 

 missible quality. No one will pretend to say 

 that flatulent colic is an inherited disease; but 

 we have the very best of evidence that some 

 horses are more subject to this disease than 

 others and that they transmit this tendency to 

 their offspring. Acute laminitis may not be a 

 constitutional infirmity, but the peculiar for- 

 mation of joint that falls an easy prey to this 

 disease is as clearly transmissible as are color 

 and form. 



CAUSES OF BARRENNESS IN BROOD MARES. 



I have spoken at considerable length else- 

 where of the dangers to stallions from over- 



