THE AMERICAN TROTTING HORSE. 499 



it may be associated with any form. We therefore must respect 

 the pedigrees of the horses and mares we breed from ; and the more 

 of the trotting quality we find in their pedigrees, the more reason 

 we will have for expecting a fast colt. Form, size, style, and 

 action are all important matters in the constitution of any horse, 

 and particularly important in trotters, because they are kept for 

 use and for pleasure-driving as well as for racing ; but the speed 

 is not a result of any combination of these qualities. The right 

 kind of a nervous system will accomplish more if the form and 

 action are good than if they are bad ; and all the necessary condi- 

 tions of speed may exist in a horse, and yet he may be valueless 

 because of an incurably bad temper, or because he inherits a 

 strong tendency to some disqualifying disease. These matters 

 every breeder will use his own judgment on. If a mare is good 

 in all respects except speed, and is bred to a horse of speed, but 

 of bad organization in other respects, the colt may have all the 

 good qualities of the dam and the speed of the sire ; or may have 

 the bad qualities of the sire and the want of speed of the dam. 

 It is impossible to foresee in what proportion the two parents will 

 transmit their respective qualities to the offspring; so that the 

 safest rule in breeding, is to have as much of all the qualities we 

 breed for in both parents as is possible. The speed should be in 

 both families to make its inheritance certain ; but if it is strongly 

 inherited (jy one side, we may reasonably expect all of the progeny 

 to go faster than the parent that is not speedy. Thus a slow mare 

 bred to a good trotting-foal getter, will always produce faster colts 

 than she would if bred to a slow stallion like herself. 



The condition of parents at the time of conception has a power- 

 ful influence on the progeny whether it be mental or physical 

 condition. Offspring inherit both the congenital and the acquired 

 qualities of parents, as is well exemplified in the familiar case of 

 dogs taught to hunt birds, and when they are found, to stand and 

 wait for a man to shoot them, instead of rushing on to catch them 

 as the instinctive impulse would prompt. The standing is an 

 acquired quality, the effect of teaching, and yet it is transmitted 

 by hereditary descent as certainly as any other quality. A well- 

 bred setter or pointer pup will stand stanchly at a game bird, when 

 only four months old, without any teaching. The effect on offspring , 

 of the transient condition of parents, may be seen in every family. 

 No two children of the same parents are alike, unless they be 

 twins. The reason is plain; the parents change from year to 

 year,, and the children inherit the changed conditions. The father 

 may have a lawsuit, and a child may inherit the contentiousness 

 and obstinacy engendered by it ; he may afterwards be engaged in 

 active business enterprises, and transmit energy and a clear intel- 

 lect to another child ; a third may be idiotic, because his father 



