MARES AND COLTS. 19 



arrives he attends to it, and spares no pains in prepar- 

 ing his ground and sowing his seed, and then with 

 proper care and the blessing of a kind Providence, he 

 expects in autumn to reap a bountiful harvest ; and 

 the same care should be taken if he wishes to raise a 

 good horse. He should pay much attention to select 

 the best of blood in both the sire and the dam, but 

 how little attention is paid to this by a large portion 

 of those who raise horses, and by some who profess to 

 have a taste for a good horse, but his taste effects his 

 brain but little and his pocket less. If he owns a 

 good mare which has noble blood and a proud spirit, 

 he prides himself in driving her because she is the 

 best there is in his town, and in this manner he uses 

 her until she is wind-broken or spavined, in fine, has 

 all the qualities of a broken-down horse, and in fact 

 becomes unfit for any other purpose. He then comes 

 to the conclusion that she is just fit to raise him a nice 

 colt) and he looks for a horse and succeeds in finding 

 a good one, and secures his service, for which a fair 

 price is paid, and he is expecting to get something 

 very fine from his once good mare, but now worthless for 

 any other purpose, as he thinks, but to make a good 

 breeder in her old age. You will often see him with 

 a long face and sour look after the foaling, and he 

 finds he has nothing more than an ordinary colt by the 

 side of his old lame mare, and you will often hear him 

 find fault because the stock of the horse is so poor. 



Never, until those who raise horses learn to practice 

 a different course than the one we have described, will 

 there be that improvement in our stock of horses that 

 we ought to make. And now let us begin with our 



