HORSE BREEDING. 145 



every requisite quality, to form the nucleus of many 

 more breeding studs. 



If men can be found with judgment to select them, 

 and capital to pay for them, and sufficient energy to 

 enter into the business with a will and determination 

 to carry it out liberally, I doubt not that a princely 

 fortune would be the result. We haye many intelligent 

 and scientific farmers, men who make but few mistakes 

 in breeding cattle aj$ sheep ; why do not they pay 

 moie attention, to the breeding of horses, which would 

 sell as readily, and at more remunerative prices than any 

 other kind of stock ? 



It is as easy to produce a valuable horse as a weedy 

 screw, by paying proper attention to the breed and 

 quality of the progenitors. But many of our farmers 

 breed from worn-out mares, and any travelling stallion 

 that happens to pass by the farm, irrespective of all 

 combinations of make, shape, or quality ; in many in- 

 stances both sire and dam may be weak in the loins, 

 touched in the wind, unsound in the hocks, or otherwise 

 afflicted with diseases common to most aged horses ; and 

 the produce, as may be expected, turns out a weak, 

 weedy, undersized foal, with long bad- shaped legs and 

 feet, like its sire, coarse in its head and general appear, 

 ance like its dam, without the speed of the former or 

 the strength of the latter, but almost sure to be afflicted 

 with more or less of the bad qualities of both. 



This most prevalent error is the cause of farmers pay- 

 ing more attention to the breeding and fattening of cat- 



