688 
BREEDING HORSES. 
selecting a choice brood mare of the black-brown or dark- 
grey colour, large in body and well-shaped, carcase roomy, 
bone thin and flat, and legs clean from shaggy hair; one 
cross from a strong thorough-bred male would produce an 
offspring combining strength and action, and possessing 
power, with spirit to exert it on strong lands, and quickness 
of motion for light soils, and for all work that requires a rapid 
execution, without being encumbered with a heavy lumbering 
carcase, which is most erroneously supposed to constitute 
strength. The female will impart size, strength, and vigour 
of constitution capable of performing any work that is re- 
quired ; and the male will supply spirit and muscle to put 
the strength into action in any instance of time or purpose. 
This breed would be almost invaluable if discrimination and 
judgment be used in selecting the parents, especially the 
female; the progeny suits many purposes, and a further cross 
would remove them to the hunting stud. A less degree of 
breeding on the side of the male may be considered sufficient, 
which would produce animals of great use for farming 
purposes. 
The farmer must be very careful in selecting the female, 
and may allow a somewhat finer quality, in the male, but not 
so far different as to form an unseemly distinction. The 
qualities of animals that are assorted for propagation should 
be much alike ; for if a very wide gap exist, many crosses 
must intervene before the qualities could be made to approxi- 
mate. The properties will be more usefully developed in the 
process of like qualities advancing step by step to better, than 
in the ill-consorted adaptation of extremes, which in the 
process of meeting may be expected to yield many irregu- 
larities. 
Much breeding has been attempted in this manner, and 
has been stopped before the results had time to appear, either 
from unavoidable circumstances or from an ignorant impa- 
tience. The farmer who has the command of ample means, 
and who has provided himself with better ideas, will not 
hesitate to adopt the highest mode that is here recommended ; 
■while the cultivator w T ho is obliged to tread in an humble 
path, and who has not at command the necessary ideas and 
the ready application of them, may be most earnestly ex- 
horted to use the materials that are within his reach, though 
they be of an inferior order, but which by a steady progres- 
sion will lead to the same end. 
Again the farmer must be reminded that all success in the 
breeding of animals is based on the selection of the parents, 
and the treatment of the progeny. The fundamental axiom 
