THE AMERICAN TROTTING HORSE. 491 



apparent injurious consequences to the offspring. Black Flying Cloud 

 was by Vermont Black Hawk and out of a. daughter of Vermont 

 Black Hawk. He was a horse of fine size, — much larger than his 

 sire, — of elegant form and style, and begot horses of great excellence. 



We have not yet solved the problem of in-breeding quite satis- 

 factorily, but one thing is certain: no plan of in -breeding will pro- 

 duce a good horse out of indifferent parents. The best that can 

 be done by it is to perpetuate the good qualities already established 

 in the family. Scrubs in-bred will produce scrubs, and probably 

 very scrubby scrubs. 



In chickens, if in-breeding is continued for several years, the 

 first noticeable result is their increased productiveness of eggs. The 

 stock becomes smaller and more delicate with each successive in- 

 breeding; and all weakly animals are more prolific than stronger 

 ones, hence the increased number of eggs. When the conditions 

 of life depress and retard the development of plants or animals, 

 they become more prolific because their offspring will come into 

 being under circumstances unfavorable to the continuance of their 

 existence, and Nature equalizes the chances by producing more of 

 them. It is in accordance with this law that fat animals and idle 

 animals are not sure to breed; that families living luxuriously for 

 a few generations have very few children, while those that ''live 

 from hand to mouth" are proverbially fruitful — "A fool for luck, 

 and a poor man for children." The chickens are more prolific for 

 a few generations, but continue the in-breeding, and they become 

 so very weakly and small that the experiment will end in a good 

 out-cross. If it were continued longer in the same direction, the 

 result would probably be the extinction of the stock. 



Taking Messenger as a single source of the trotting quality, and 

 supposing there was not another horse in the country above medi- 

 ocrity in that respect, we might expect some of his fillies to inherit 

 his trotting in great degree. To perpetuate that particular quality 

 in her offspring, it wouldbe better to breed her to her sire than to 

 any horse of another stock, though her offspring might lose some- 

 thing in stamina by the in-breeding. It might be still better to 

 breed her to any son of Messenger that also, equally with herself, 

 inherited the trotting quality. In either case her colts would take 

 the trotting from two directions, and would consequently transmit it 

 with more certainty to their descendants than if they inher- 

 ited it from only one side. The trotting quality was a peculiarity 

 of Messenger, and by in-breeding it was perpetuated ; so would 

 any other peculiarity have been — any imperfection. If Messenger 

 had been lop-eared, that quality could have been perpetuated in the 

 same way; but as breeders would not choose his lop-eared colts 

 to breed from, and would choose his perfect colts, the desirable 



