JACKS, JENNKTS AND MUI.ES 99 



become almost extinct. In Majorca, however, and 

 probably some parts of the coast of Spain opposite, 

 the large breed may yet be obtained in its purity." 



It is easily understood why the race should be the 

 purest of any of the Spanish breeds. The line divid- 

 ing Andalusia and Catalonia is an imaginary one, 

 and along the border there is necessarily a more or 

 less commingling of the breeds among the people, 

 who at no time have given their time and attention 

 to scientific or even very careful breeding; and of 

 course a large part of both countries must be effected 

 by the kind of stock bred by the other. This is all 

 the more probable, too, as no value whatever is placed 

 upon color. They like a white just as well as a black, 

 and would not reduce a dollar on a jack if he should 

 happen to be green. But Majorca is an isolated island 

 two or three hundred miles from the coast of Spain, 

 and is inhabited by a people satisfied to do as their 

 fathers did before them, and who likewise, as is often 

 the case, think that what they have is better than what 

 anyone else has. It is hardly likely, therefore, that 

 they would go to the expense of bringing across the 

 seas any foreign blood. As a rule the jack breeders 

 of Spain are not a class who have the means to im- 

 port, or the information that would lead to it. 



To our people — I mean those engaged in the stock 

 breeding business — their lack of information is as- 

 tonishing to the last degree. Go to a progressive 

 breeder in this country, of whatever kind of stock, 

 and he can give with a fair degree of accuracy the 

 location and, perhaps, the ownership, of the larger 

 half of his kind of stock in the state. But in Spain 

 one section is as profoundly ignorant of what is in 



