STALLIONS, BROOD MARES AND FOALS. 147 



be continued in the same line from generation to generation, 

 as that can only tend to accumulate and intensify the evil. 

 In the exceptional case of a very forward animal, where an 

 early conception is especially desirable, and where the young 

 dam is either not allowed to suckle her offspring or is al- 

 lowed to skip the following year without breeding, the course 

 may sometimes be profitable; but, as a rule, breeding from 

 immature animals should be avoided, for the reasons above 

 mentioned. 



An excess of rich and stimulating food, and consequent 

 plethora, is a common cause of non-breeding. In some such 

 cases there is an accumulation of fat, as referred to above; 

 but this condition is seen also in rapidly induced plethora 

 and where no time has been allowed for the development of 

 fatty degeneration. Among others, the following conditions 

 will serve to explain these: With an extra tension of the 

 liquid inside the blood-vessels the tendency is to secretion 

 rather than absorption; the rich and stimulating quality of 

 the circulating blood maintains an unusual activity in the 

 glands of the womb, and the result of these combined causes 

 is an excessive production of uterine mucus, among which 

 the semen is expelled before impregnation can be effected. 

 The rich blood is, further, a stimulant to the muscular walls 

 of the womb and vagina, and leads to their contraction under 

 slight exciting causes, so that here again we have an effect- 

 ual cause of the rejection of the semen and its failure to im- 

 pregnate. 



The correction for this state of things is to reduce the 

 richness and stimulating qualities of the blood. Many ac- 

 complish this by bleeding the plethoric animal before putting 

 her to the male. This often succeeds, for it promptly re- 

 duces the pressure of the blood within the vessels, and, by 

 determining the absorption of liquid from all available 

 sources, dilutes that fluid and renders it less stimulating. 

 There is one objection to this course that a moderate 

 abstraction of blood from a system full of constitutional 

 vigor acts as a stimulus to a still more rapid formation of 

 blood for the purpose of supplying the waste, and thus the 

 present success may be gained at the expense of a still 



