CHOICE OF STALLION. 23 



testably, transmissible. Blindness is, if possible, yet more 

 so ; and even when one eye is destroyed by accident, if 

 the other eye, through a sympathetic affection, follow it, 

 we should consider it by no means safe to breed from 

 a horse so injured. Lameness, arising from pure acci- 

 dent, is of course not transmissible ; but where a race- 

 horse has broken down, as it is termed, in running, — that 

 is to say, where the sinews, or smaller metacarpal bones, 

 commonly known as the splint bones, have given way 

 from want of strength sufficient to endure the strain 

 laid upon them, — it will be well to observe whether there 

 be not some visible defect of the conformation of those 

 parts, tending to undue weakness : such as disproportion- 

 ate length of the lower or cannon bone of the fore leg, 

 which can scarcely be too short ; or the defect which is 

 generally called tying t7i, consisting of an improper con- 

 traction of the volume of the leg, immediately below the 

 fore knee, and indicating an insufficiency of the splint 

 bone. These malformations are distinctly hereditary. If 

 a horse, therefore, break down in his forelegs, having such 

 a malformation, the breaking down itself may be said to 

 have been hereditary ; and one would, therefore, eschew 

 breeding from such a horse. Now, to give two cases in 

 point : there is probably not a horse in America Avhich a 

 good judge would sooner select, m regard to size, strength, 

 power, and all other qualifications, to which to put coun- 

 try mares, than Boston. He is in every respect the beau- 

 ideal of what, in England, would be considered a hunter 

 getter. And the English hunter is precisely the stamp 

 and style of horse which is the most profitable for the 

 farmer to raise, for all general purposes. No one in Eng- 

 land would drive before his carriage, or ride on the 

 road, anything but English hunters, if he could afford 



