CHAP. I.] BREEDING, PRECAUTIONS; ERRORS. 61 



conformation, or disagreement in size between the 

 parts containing and those contained. 



15. Now, reader, our purpose in making this 

 exposition of the ill-effects produced by mis-shapen 

 limbs, &c. on the horse's health and usefulness, 

 would be incomplete, were the original causes 

 thereof left unnoticed. The most remote, or 

 more general one, resides in the breed, or the 

 manner of breeding the animal, whence we are 

 sometimes led to say, " What is bred in the bone 

 will never go out of the flesh." As regards the 

 hind of stock from which to raise a supply of young 

 ones, breeders may undoubtedly suit their own 

 fancies ; but it must be seen that a brood mare 

 which receives too much of the horse for her ca- 

 pacity will produce a foal all father, as it is called, 

 being at the same time larger than she can con- 

 veniently carry ; it then bids fair from the beginning 

 to be a mis-shapen animal. This happens oftener 

 than is commonly imagined ; but it is easily pre- 

 vented by adopting a horse for her whose strength 

 comes tolerably near that of the mare. Disregard 

 of this precaution is found to produce the first foal 

 much smaller, though more lively, than the next 

 and subsequent ones, especially if care be taken 

 in the latter case to give her a horse more and more 

 vigorous as she becomes more roomy. For it must 

 be clear to any body [upon mechanical principles 

 again] that if the foetus, growing too large for the 

 cavity in which it is generated, originates too much 

 bone, it must determine towards some particular 



