690 
BREEDING HORSES. 
objectionable, showing a great quantity of offal to be carried 
about in a loose state in the shape of guts and entrails. A 
great point in breeding lies in reducing the size of useless 
parts, and in getting rid of unnecessary appendages, and the 
lightness of offal ever forms a point of excellence. Huge 
bulks must be reduced, and it always formed a leading point 
with our first breeders to diminish the size of the animals, in 
order to acquire symmetry and compactness, it being an in- 
variable law of nature that bulk is always attended with a 
corresponding degree of coarseness. This point, however, 
must not be carried too far, as has often been done in the 
case of animals that are fattened for the sake of the flesh, as 
smallness of size is not so objectionable, as a greater number 
may be kept ; but with working-horses the case is widely 
different, where a certain degree of size is indispensable in 
order to effect purposes where a specific strength only is ap- 
plicable. The object of the farmer, therefore, is to retain a 
certain size in the animal, and to impart to that bulk the 
necessary points of muscle and spirit. But this point cannot 
be gained without reducing the bulk in some quarter ; and 
that reduction must take place in the useless parts, in the 
quantity of bone, of offal, and of flesh ; and the increase must 
be made in the necessary parts of muscle, spirit, and action. 
The productions of nature are so varied, that an ample store 
of the elements almost everywhere exists; one animal is 
found of a finer form than another, produced by accident — 
and these varieties afford the instruments with which the 
further improvement is effected. No organ in the animal 
body shows the results of a superior organization more 
quickly and more durably than the eye : in every case of 
refined systems it is prominent, pert, and lively, and forms a 
point of great importance in the selection of animals. When 
the body is in a state of inaction, the visual organ should 
appear placid and easy ; but when any symptoms of exertion 
are required, the eye must ever give the first signal, and 
communicate to the other parts the intelligence that the time 
of action has arrived : and these parts must ever be ready 
and willing to obey the summons by being closely knit and 
joined in combination, compact, and ready for action, and 
not loose and disjointed and far between. A horse may be 
called society in miniature, the component parts of which 
must be ready for action and polished for use, and adjusted 
so that each part assists the other in the most direct, the 
most rapid, and most precise combination. These qualities 
are obtained under the name of 6( spirit ” and “ action,” and 
