116 THE HORSK, 



The above calculation is founded on tlie supposition that all 

 the dams were of common stock. It is not pretended, and it is 

 scarcely possible, that any of them should have been thorough- 

 breds — for no owner of a thoroughbred mare stints her to a stal- 

 lion of infei'ior race, and it is barely possible that any of them 

 were half-breds, as few thoroughbreds have been covering in the 

 States whence the dams are likely to have come. 



If, however, it be assumed — which would, in some degree, 

 oonstitute the Morgan horse a family — that, from the beginning 

 to the present day, all the so-called Morgan stallions have been 

 bred out of their cousins and sisters — then the seventh genera- 

 tion would possess one one-hundred and twenty-eighth instead of 

 one two-hundred and fifty-sixth portion of the blood ; but would 

 be in far worse position, since there is no such thing known as 

 the incestuous in-breeding of a single family of six persons, 

 at first, to the sixth generation, without its producing utter de- 

 terioration, imbecility, and the gradual extinction of the race. 



On the other hand, it is contradictory to all that is known of 

 horse-breeding, or indeed of the breeding of any animal of 

 a high finish, to assume that a sire himself, having only one two- 

 hundred and fifty-sixth part of any pure blood, whether it be 

 Arab horse, Durham bull, or setter dog, can transmit any ap- 

 preciable portion of that blood, or of the particular virtues 

 which that blood may contain, to its progeny, begotten on a 

 cold-blooded, or diiferent-blooded animal. 



As I have shown above, the eighth cross from a thorough- 

 bred stallion, on seven generations of dray -mares, would not be 

 distinguishable from a dray-horse. 



The eighth cross of a red Irish setter, on seven generations of 

 bull bitches, would scarce show a mark to distinguish it from 

 the true bull, and would have no more inclination to point a 

 partridge, than he to point an ox. Consequently, in my opinion, 

 it is idle to talk of the Morgan horses of Vermont as a distinct 

 family, or to attribute their qualities to their descent from the 

 Justin Morgan horse, or from any other one, or two, or half 

 dozen horses whatsoever. , • 



The only mark or evidence of a family which they do show, 

 is to their disadvantage — it is their undersize, which is probably 

 tlie result of an attempt, ill-advised and unnatural, to make a 



