148 HORSE BREEDING. 



for a " swap horse." The one great lessoa for all breeders to 

 learn is to begin at the top, and then breed up. Life is too 

 short to begin at the bottom and breed up. 



If you begin at the top, every generation that is added to 

 your stock is a step in advance ; but if you commence at the 

 other end you have to reach the standard of excellence as it 

 now exists, and by the time you have reached what is now re- 

 corded as the standard, this same standard has, in the mean- 

 time, advanced also, and you are as far away from the goal for 

 which you are striving as when you began. 



To become a successful breeder a man must be able to know 

 a horse. This does not simply mean that he must be able to 

 tell a horse from a cow, or a draft horse from a thoroughbred, 

 but that he must be able to tell at once the degree of perfection 

 at all points that the animal has attained. He must know how 

 to select and couple his breeding stock of whatever breed or 

 class he decides upon ; how to handle his brood mares — how to 

 feed them and how to manage them — especially during foal- 

 ing time. . 



Whatever breed of horses you may decide to breed let me 

 entreat you to breed handsome horses of their class ; let them 

 be trotters, roadsters, or draft. You will always find a hand- 

 some colt or horse the first one to be sold, all other things be- 

 ing equal, and for the best price ; and surely, it costs no more 

 to raise a handsome, stylish, and attractive horse than it does 

 to raise an ugly or gawky one that nobody wants at any price 

 for any purpose. 



Avoid breeding to any hereditary unsoundness, liable to be 

 transmitted. An unsound horse is a perpetual source of 

 annoyance to any owner and never a source of profit to the 

 breeder. There is no greater trouble in breeding what you 

 want m horses than in any other stock, providing you get the 

 type established, and then, by judicious in-breeding, retain it. 



And right here I wish to remark that there is no part of 

 the business that requires more careful studying than this in- 

 breeding. Ignorantly or carelessly conducted, it is the cause of 



