168 A TREATISE ON HOBSE-fcBEEDING, 



do my readers a greater service than by supple- 

 menting what I have given on the preceding 

 pages with so much of Dr. Reynolds' work as 

 relates to the brood mare and the young foal, 

 as follows: 



Fillies served at two years old, and so coming into profit as 

 reproductors at three, will rarely develop into very high- 

 class animals, and when it is considered advisable to breed 

 from them thus early they should not be subjected to work, 

 beyond that required to break them in, until their first foals 

 are a couple of months old. The best age to put a mare to 

 the horse is at three years old, so that when she is sold in 

 the autumn of her seventh year the owner will probably 

 have obtained two foals, the value of which, added to the 

 earnings of the mare as a team animal, will leave her full 

 sale price to represent the proprietor's profit. Subject to 

 the influences previously considered, the alliance of strong 

 young mares with aged and robust stallions is the most cer- 

 tain method of obtaining a yearly production of good foals. 

 Mares that have been worked up to ten or twelve years old 

 in towns, and acquired at that age for breeding purposes, 

 seldom fulfill the desires of the purchaser; by the mainte- 

 nance of high condition for a prolonged period they are ren- 

 dered prone to sterility, and if fecundated they are apt to 

 experience difficulties in labor. When moderately well 

 nourished, comfortably lodged and unfatigued by excessive 

 and long-continued labor, mares are apt to breed at all sea- 

 sons of the year, thereby affording the owner an opportunity 

 to secure the dropping of his foals at a period when the ex- 

 igences of team labor are not very pressing and when a fresh 

 and abundant supply of green food can be assured for the 

 mutual benefit of mare and offspring. Mares which are 

 regularly worked, or those having to seek their food in the 

 spring from poor pastures, are much more certainly fecun- 

 dated than their idle or stable-fed sisters supplied with rich 

 and abundant provender. 



The appearances 'of that physiological condition termed 

 "oestrum;" "heat," "in use," etc., are usually manifested in 



