293 THE HORSE. 



termine what class of animals not thorouglibred you will raise, 

 and I believe the most profitable to be something nearly akin to 

 the English hunter ; that is to say, something whicli, having one, 

 two, three or more crosses of pure blood, on some excellent com- 

 mon stock, such as the best Vermont mares of the lighter class, 

 the best Canadian or mixed American and Canadian mares, or the 

 best, so called, Morgan mares. o/ the largest and boniest class, 

 may turn out at best a very fast and valuable trotter, or, lacking 

 the speed for that, a high-bred, showy, grand-actioned carriage 

 horse, or, in case he should want height for that purj^ose, a thor- 

 oughly-useful light farm-horse or roadster. 



All tliese horses are to be raised by judicious breeding of the 

 thoroughbred upon common mares. But it i*equires knowledge, 

 experience and judgment, to succeed in such an attempt. 



Nothing is more fatal, as a mistake, than to try to produce 

 great size, or even increase of size, by stinting under-sized, weedy 

 mares to great, overgrown, bulky stallions. The result is, almost 

 invariably, ill-shaped, narrow-chested, slab-sided, leggy animals, 

 with light round bone, and often altogether defective in balance 

 and counterpoise of parts ; having heavy heads, long, weak, un- 

 muscular necks, and either the fore-quarters or tiie hind-quarters 

 vastl}^ and disproportionately in excess. Something of this sort 

 is said by the late J. S. Skinner, in his Journal of Agriculture, 

 in an article on the breeding of the American trotting horse, to 

 have been notoriously the case of the progeny of a Cleveland 

 Bay stallion of great size, imported by Robert Pattison of Mary- 

 land, and sent by him into Frederick county of that State. 



This is precisely the result which I should have expected, 

 supposing the class of mares stinted to him, whose produce 

 turned out so unfortunately, to have been of the wretched 

 weedy, spindle-legged, raw-hipped, ewe-necked class, which one 

 sees generally used for farm-work, in that State and DelaM^are, on 

 the smaller farms and in the hands of the poorer rural proprie- 

 tors — evidently an eifete and run-down cross of thoroughbreds, 

 probably botli male and femalq, with the poorest kind of the coun- 

 try horse. 



Had the Cleveland Bay, in question, that is if he were really 

 a fine and well-proportioned animal, with good carcass, deep 

 sloping shoulders, broad chest, arched sides, short flat cannon- 



