SECRETARY'S REPORT. 171 



shrewd horse-dealer is enabled to select him at once from a 

 dozen inferior ones wliich appear equally valuable to his 

 ignorant owner. They should also endeavor to become familiar 

 ■with the principles in accordance with which breeding animals 

 must be chosen and crossed in order to obtain sound, vigorous 

 colts of the desired kind ; and always study to produce either 

 superior roadsters, or good draught horses, and not mongrels. 

 These last will always be too numerous, notwithstanding the 

 best directed efforts to procure sometlnng else. In this pro- 

 gressive age, when so many intelligent men are engaged in the 

 laudable attempt to improve our various breeds of domestic 

 animals and the standard of excellence is so high, he only 

 deserves, or has reason to expect, great success, who aims at 

 raising the very best kinds in the very best manner. 



In regard to the economy of breeding horses instead of neat 

 cattle, or sheep, the experience of the Vermont farmers during 

 the last twenty years, as well as their present success in the 

 business, seems to show conclusively that where pastures are 

 good and cheap no stock can be raised more profitably. 



Many of the most successful breeders in Vermont depend 

 entirely upon the sale of the colt for their remuneration not 

 only for the actual cost of rearing the same to a marketable 

 age, but also for the service of the stallion, and the use and 

 keeping of the mare for the year. It is deeply to be regretted 

 that so many of them employ for this purpose mares which are 

 wholly incapacitated for ordinary labor by disease ; but when 

 an old mare, so far used up as to be sold for $15, produces in 

 succession three such colts as Ethan Allen, Redleg, and Black 

 Hawk Maid, it is impossible to convince people that it will not 

 pay to breed from such. 



In nearly all cases of disease, whether of the bones, the 

 muscles, the breathing or the digestive organs, there is a 

 constitutional predisposition to such disease before its develop- 

 ment, and this weakness of constitution will, under the circum- 

 stances, be increased, and of course hereditary. Fortunately 

 for the breeder, but unfortunately for the purchaser, this defect 

 is rarely discovered until after the colt has been put to active 

 service. For this reason, if for no other, there will always be 

 an abundant supply of weak and unsound horses. 



