896 DEANE PHIuuIpPs 
Another difficulty met with as a result of open-range conditions was 
that of deterioration of the breed. Whatever may have been the source 
of the New England horses, it is clear that the promiscuous breeding of 
the semi-wild animals on the commons could not be conducive to the 
perpetuation of their best characteristics, although it may have resulted 
in a certain hardiness by weeding out the ones unable to stand the rigors 
of this wild life. At any rate, efforts were made before long to prevent 
the breeding of the obviously unfit. In 1668 the court in Massachusetts 
Bay declared: ‘‘ Whereas, the breed of horses is utterly spoyled whereby 
that useful creature will become a burden..... be it enacted that no 
stone horse above two years old be allowed on the commons or at liberty 
unless he be of comely proportions and fourteen hands in stature ’’ (39). 
The owner of a horse found in violation of this statute was to be fined, 
and later the amount of the fine was raised. Plymouth (40) and Con- 
necticut (41) passed similar limitations, the minimum stature in the 
latter case being set at thirteen hands. These restrictions seem to have 
been fairly well enforced but could obviously result in little improve- 
ment of the breed as long as complete open-range conditions prevailed. 
One of the perplexities in all these cases of damages, after horses and 
eattle had become numerous, was for the person whose premises had been 
invaded to recognize whose animal it was that had done the damage. 
The same difficulty was met with in fixing the fines for undersized 
stallions found running at large. Often these horses and cattle were 
even strays from a neighboring town, which made the problem still 
more complicated. This led to the passage of acts compelling the brand- 
ing of all animals with both the mark of the private owner and that of 
the town of his residence. The general court in Massachusetts Bay 
passed such an act in 1647, and in its records are enumerated the marks 
of thirty-three different towns under its jurisdiction at the time (42). 
In 1656 the New Haven colony compelled horses to be branded (48), 
and the other Connecticut towns did the same in 1665 (44). Rhode 
Island had a similar provision (45). In the latter plantation in 1686, 
thirty wild and unmarked horses were ordered caught and sold and 
the proceeds employed to build a prison and stocks (46). This was 
the usual fate of unbranded animals or persistent strays. In 1661 the 
eourt at Plymouth, ‘“‘ on complaint of some that certain horses or horse- 
