THE BREEDS OF HORSES. 215 



tion of it has resulted from increased capacity 

 in our horses, bred for three, four or five gen- 

 erations especially with reference to this qual- 

 ity. It is also worthy of especial remark that 

 over ninety-five per cent of all the horses with 

 records of 2:25 or better, whose breeding can 

 be traced even as far as the sire, are more or 

 less closely related to one or more of our recog- 

 nized trotting families. 



The experience of the last decade has demon- 

 strated beyond a question that by confining our 

 selections for breeding purposes to the descend- 

 ants of the well-known trotting families the 

 probabilities of producing fast trotters are in- 

 finitely greater than by going outside ; for 

 within these families the trotting gait has been 

 cultivated by selection and use until heredity 

 has been made to lend its powerful aid in 

 transmitting what was originally a spontaneous 

 or accidental superiority; and the breeder who 

 introduces a single cross in which the trotting 

 gait has not become an inherent quality only 

 adds to the probabilities of failure and postpones 

 the day when we shall be able to breed fast 

 trotters with certainty. We may possibly yet 

 have something to do before we can claim to 

 have established a breed of trotting horses, but 

 the more closely we confine ourselves to judi- 

 cious selections from the families that trot and 

 produce trotters the more rapid will be our prog- 



