chapter II 



AS TO "SOUNDNESS" 



IN view of the increasing difficulty in obtaining 

 strictly high-class horses for any purpose, it 

 would appear inevitable that the consumer 

 must make up his mind to accept fair-class 

 horses that are not quite sound, or to put up with 

 sound animals of moderate individual merits. It 

 is becoming impossible for dealers to find sound 

 horses of the highest class. In no country are 

 the buyers' exactions as to soundness as severe as 

 they are in America, and in no country are they 

 so unreasonably and unwisely strict, — " unreas- 

 onably " because perfection is insisted upon when 

 certain departures from it do not affect usefulness, 

 and " unwisely " because the presence of these 

 defects will often result in the rejection of an 

 animal otherwise exactly suitable to the buyer 

 and his purposes. To the average purchaser, 

 absolute soundness is a "bugaboo" which he, 

 parrot-like, insists upon ; fearing to invest in 



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