IN-BREEDING. 113" 



reduced to certainty, siich families cannot continue without 

 degeneration, unless tliej are farther crossed with pure blood. 

 If mares of any family, unmixed, be stinted to unmixed stallions 

 of the same family, generation after generation, the result is as 

 certain as it is that the earth revolves on its. axis. The good 

 blood will die out, and the progeny, sooner or later, become 

 degenerate, weak, and worthless. 



Again, to breed stallions of such a family to mares of better 

 blood must, necessarily, fail ; for though it has often been 

 attempted to produce improved bone and power, by putting 

 blood mares to bony underbred stallions, it has never succeeded, 

 and it is now universally known and conceded that, in order to 

 improve the races, the sire must be the superior animal. Indeed, 

 it is argued, with much probability, that a mare once crossed 

 with a sire of different blood, not only produces, but 'becomes 

 herself, a cross ; and is incapable of ever again producing her 

 own strain. Thus a thorough mare, once stinted to a cold- 

 blooded horse, could never again bear the pure colt, even to a 

 pure sire ; while a cold-blooded mare, having once foaled to a 

 thorough horse, would always be improved as a breeder by the 

 change produced in her own constitution. This is a mysterious 

 and difhcult subject, and it is probable that the question is not 

 fully sounded ; I am satisfied, however, that there is much in it, 

 and I shall enter more largely into the matter when I come to 

 treat especially of breeding ; as I shall into the qualities alleged 

 to belong to these families, when I come to deal with them dis- 

 tinctively as such. 



At present, I only wish to record it as my opinion, that the 

 supposed superiority of any of these breeds is only attributable 

 to their possessing a larger share than ordinary horses of pure 

 blood, and that this superiority cannot last without farther 

 admixture. 



Therefore, while I should expect no possible advantage from 

 breeding a Morgan, or Messenger, one-third part bred mare, to 

 a similarl}' bred stallion, I should look forward confidently to a 

 vastly superior progeny by putting her to a powerful sire of 

 pure blood. 



Again, by putting an entirely cold-blooded mare, say of 

 l^'orman, Cleveland Bay, or Flemish blood, to a Morgan or 

 Vol. I.— 8 



