THE NORTON FARMERS’ CLUB. 
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ably fashionable, and has got an immense deal of stock. He had 
been a good racer, and was, 1 believe, perfectly sound in action, 
but had been fired in his hocks when young, I imagine, for some 
real or supposed weakness. Now, although I have particularly 
observed scores of his progeny, I never saw one that had good 
hock action, and I believe that, at least, one-half of his stock have, 
at one time or the other, proved unsound. 
Since writing the foregoing, I have mentioned the subject to an 
intelligent young veterinary surgeon, who fully confirmed the opi- 
nion I have expressed, and related to me a singular instance 
that had come under his observation only the day previously. It 
was of a mare pony, with deformed knees, dropping a foal with 
knees similarly deformed, and actually ossified when the poor little 
sufferer was only a few days old. 
The causes of unsoundness in horses are so various that I cannot 
undertake to enumerate them here ; but I will allude to them gene- 
rally, as the rocks or quicksands of breeding, which are almost 
sure to be destructive of our hopes if not skilfully avoided, to 
wit: — Unsoundness or malformation of the feet, the most common 
of which are the navicular disease, contraction, running thrushes, 
corns, sandcracks, and the like, and having either too narrow or too 
open and flat a formation. Unsoundness or malformation of the legs, 
such as splents, ring-bones, crooked or ill-formed joints, causing 
faulty action and a hitting together of the legs, and weak or sprung 
sinews, & c. Diseased eyes or imperfect vision are generally the 
cause of the dangerous trick of shying. Affections of the lungs or 
windpipe, such as broken wind, roaring, whistling, and so on. Dis- 
eases of the hock-joint — a common failing. In addition to these there 
are many vicious habits, such as cribbing, jibbing, kicking, shying, 
and the like ; and many constitutional diseases, such as farcy, 
glanders, grease, See., to which, I have no doubt, there is an heredi- 
tary tendency, and which it should always be the object of the 
breeder to counteract by an opposite temperament in the cross, or 
(if he takes my advice) to avoid it altogether, as unfit to be propa- 
gated from. 
Having now disposed of my first proposition, to breed from none 
but sound and healthy parents, I proceed to the second, viz. — To 
breed from the most perfect in form and action, and to take especial 
care that a tendency to the same defect does not exist in both pa- 
rents. I have endeavoured, in the preceding section of my subject, 
to impress upon your minds the importance of avoiding all but 
healthy parents in your breeding studs; but you will still breed to 
little purpose unless you obtain those essential requisites of form 
and action and substance, without which no horse is capable of 
long performing satisfactorily the duties required of him, or of re- 
