SELECTION, CARE AND MANAGEMENT 565 



hints to beginners, especially in reference to the 

 matter of unsoundness in draft breeding stock. He 

 says: 



' ' To the young man setting out to own a team of 

 high-class Percheron mares I would say, start right, 

 however small the beginning may be. If he has only 

 the one mare and she is a good one, he need not be 

 ashamed to show her. If he can take that one mare 

 to the fair and get first prize on her, he will have 

 done something that many an older and larger 

 breeder has never accomplished. 



"Many people have an idea that purebred mares 

 require more care than grades. This is entirely er- 

 roneous. They do not require it ; but somehow they 

 seem to get it, which goes with the spirit of success. 

 In order to begin right, I would impress upon the 

 prospective buyer to huj them sound. Do not 

 squeeze the eagle too hard. Use good judgment and 

 buy them sound. I would rather have one good one 

 and have her sound than half-a-dozen good ones and 

 have them unsound. When you go out to buy an 

 animal and find it a little coarse in the pastern, turn 

 it down, and hard at that. If you hesitate, the seller 

 may try to cover it up with a lot of excuses. Then 

 one asks himself whether it will breed on. Of course 

 it will, not only for one generation, but through half- 

 a-dozen. I know for sure that it will persist for three 

 generations. It matters not whether it is a coarse 

 pastern or a coarse hock, bad eyes or bad wind, they 

 are all the same when it comes to breeding. 



' ' I once bought a stallion. He was a good one, but 

 developed a sidebone at the age of four. Most of 

 his colts developed sidebonos at the age of two. More 

 than that, nearly every one of liis fillies passed them 

 on. We were forced to put them all on the auction 

 block and sell them as coarse in the pasterns for what 



