IIF.KOD ELdOI). 261 



also, tliroiigli Emilias, liis sire, has Herod on both lines, as his 

 paternal and maternal g. g. g. sire ; and Tartar, the sire of a 

 Herod, a third time, in one remove yet farther back. 



Now this would go to justify Stonehenge's opinion, tliat the 

 recurrence to the same, original, old strains of blood, wlien such 

 strains have been sufficiently intermixed, and rendered new by 

 other more recent crosses, is not injurious, but of great advan- 

 tage ; and that, on the whole, it is better, cceteris paribus, to 

 have recourse to such, than to try experiments with extreme 

 out-crosses. 



On this principle, if one might venture to try prediction, 

 the newly imported stallion Scythian, by Orlando, out of Scy- 

 thia by Hetman Platoff, in addition to many of the best crosses 

 of out-blood, as Prunella, Highflyer, Eclipse, &c., has at least 

 fourteen in-crosses of Herod blood, seven in the pedigree of 

 Cobweb, his g. g. dam ; two through Slane, son of Orville ; one 

 through Ptoyal Oak, son of Catton, and four through his sire 

 Orlando, by Beningbrough, Evelina, Buzzard and Diomed, all 

 of whom run ultimately to the strain. 



I liave no doubt, in the world, that this is a branch of the 

 subject of breeding to which no adequate attention has been 

 given heretofore ; and that it will be found hereafter, due re- 

 gard being had to the remote lines of descent, and proper study 

 being given to ascertain the proximate strains of blood, that far 

 more is to be done for the improvement of stock of all kinds, 

 than can be effected by the choice of this stallion, or that ; 

 merely because he is fashionable, because he is handsome, be- 

 cause he has run well, both for speed and stoutness — though, of 

 course, all these are arguments in his fiivor, and, though in de- 

 fault of some of them he should not be chosen at alJ — nor even 

 because he has got good stock out of mares of a strain wholly 

 different from that to which it is intended to put him. And I 

 believe that the same theory may be successfully apijlied to 

 other breeds, than the pure thorough-blood, as I shall explain 

 hereafrer. 



