'^?.7§7^iT*s;'*^'^f'fr^^^^^^ 



r-fr^^-!J^ yj' . 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



U9 



pocket, and happiness in the heart; and so 

 fast as the clouds of vision are dispelled, and 

 the crusts of bigotry and prejudice brokeiv 

 up, will attention to this, and kindred sub- 

 jects, secure desirable and profitable results. 

 Ignorance is not bliss; neither is it foolish 

 for even farmers to be wise. 



The farmer who has good land, but infer- 

 ior seed, does not expect the same return as 

 from good seed; and, if the seed be the 

 best, but the soil poor, he does not expect 

 the product of a better soil; neither does 

 he, while depending on his labor on the soil 

 for living and profit, sell the best soil he 

 may possess, and rely upon poor or worn-out 

 lands — unless he have the means to bring 

 that land into a more productive condition — 

 and expect the heavy crops of his rich lands. 

 And, yet, while they do not so with their 

 lands, they do it with their horses; and the 

 same policy, that, in reference to land, 

 would be regarded as foolish in the extreme, 

 and suicidal to their best interests, they 

 practice with their stock, and reap the re- 

 wards, unfavorable though they be, and un- 

 noticed and disregarded as they have 

 strangely been. 



If it is more laborious and difficult to 

 raise a second-rate crop from poor soil than 

 a good yield from rich land, it is equally 

 more unpleasant and expensive, compara- 

 tively, in the end, to raise inferior animals 

 than good ones. If a person feels that he 

 is in any way responsible for the kind and 

 condition of the stock he keeps, as all must, 

 to some extent, he cannot but entertain a 

 degree of pride and self-satisfaction in the 

 possession of tbe best specimens of his own 

 raising, and that feeling is a most potent 

 stimulus to further improvement But the 

 possession of inferior stock produces quite 

 as marked an influence upon the owner in 

 the opposite direction. Bach and every ill- 

 formed or bad-conditioned animal is not only 

 a "standing monument," but a living, mov- 

 ing, telling placard, setting forth his want 

 of knowledge or care, which the most ignor- 

 ant may read as they run; and a "hard- 

 shell" indeed must he be who is insensible 

 to the effects. 



There is one source of disappointment, 

 however, to those having good mares, which 

 is but little understood, and which, so far as 

 I know, has been noticed in agricultural 

 journals only by Professor Cleaveland some 

 time since, in the American Agriculturist 

 and Albany Cultivator. I allude to the 

 effect of progeny upon the mother. Farm- 

 ers have frequently -taken much pains to se- 

 cure the services of a blooded horse for a 

 favorite mare, and been disappointed and 



mortified to find the foal resembling neither 

 sire nor dam in the particular points sought 

 for, but being rather a representative of an 

 inferior horse, who had served previously. 

 Many valuable facts are related in the 

 articles referred to, illustrative of this sub- 

 ject, and showing its existence in the human 

 family, as well as among the lower animals; 

 and the opinion is entertained that inas- 

 much as the same blood must circulate 

 through the veins of both mother and off- 

 spring, that the system of the dam becomes 

 thus modified, and rendered, to a greater or 

 less degree, similar to her mongrel young. 

 This condition seems to continue, and hence, 

 having her blood contaminated in the first 

 instance, by that of the foal resembling the 

 male patent, and retaining that contamina- 

 tion, thus affects future offsprings — the 

 effect more observable if in the second in- 

 stance the mare has been served with a 

 hoise much unlike the first one. 



While there is no question in the minds 

 of the few who have studied this subject, 

 as to the rationale of its action, and its gen- 

 eral application, it has doubtless been the 

 source of many failures, and discouraged 

 hundreds from further efforts to improve 

 their stock, as well as furnished occasion for 

 unfavorable and injurious reflections upon 

 really excellent animals. It is an important 

 fact, and a very good illustration of the 

 necessity of beginning right, and of the dis- 

 advantages of a single mis-step; besides, 

 furnishing ample and reasonable evidence of 

 the fact, that he who changes the sire each 

 season, can form no safe opinion as to what 

 the progeny may be, farther than that they 

 may have the general outline of the horse, 

 and certainly be hornless quadrupeds. 

 Those who are known as the most success- 

 ful stock raisers, have always carefully 

 avoided such changing of sires and confound- 

 ing of stock. 



Not to occupy too much space in a valua- 

 ble journal, at present, a single remark as 

 to the profits of stock raising, and especially 

 horses, will be added. It will be evident, 

 the writer thinks, to any one who will take 

 the trouble to make careful estimates of the 

 value of land in wheat and com growing re- 

 gions, of the expense of raising and getting 

 to market each of those crop», compared 

 with the receipts for them, that much more 

 attention to the raising of horses, — good 

 ones, both for draught and saddle, — would 

 be highly remunerative. And, considering 

 the very great demand for horses, that such 

 demand is not confined to any one locality, 

 but is general, and increasing, there can be 

 little doubt, that present prices will be 





