ON BREEDING. 
48? 
each new one considering its predecessor as altogether visionary 
and of no importance ; and so warmly have the different systems 
been advocated in the different agricultural publications, that the 
“cacoethes scribendi” has in a few instances, at some of the 
annual agricultural meetings, occasioned the cacoethes pugnandi. 
“ So high at last the contest rose, 
From words the creatures came to blows.” 
How far the latter practice of deciding the question can be 
considered eligible (for certainly they are knock down arguments) 
is not for us to decide. This we know, that we are likely to 
continue in this state of dubiousness unless a national society* is 
established for the purpose of elucidating the truth; as the long 
course of experiments necessary to attain this end would incur 
more time and expense than any single individual would be able, 
even if willing, to undertake. 
To enter fully into the nature and explanation of the best and 
most approved method of effecting improvements in our breed of 
horses, as far as the present state of knowledge extant will enable 
us, is our purpose: for notwithstanding that reiterated discussions 
have almost completely exhausted the subject, yet with little 
danger of error we may venture to affirm, that there is still an 
ample and open field for future discovery and improvement. 
Wedded to no particular system, we shall be guided by no other 
monitor than common sense , which seldom fails to assert its rights 
over those of fashion and prejudice . 
We have already shewn that horses are beautifully adapted to 
the soil which they inhabit—the compliancy of the constitutions 
of herbiverous animals being so great that they readily accom¬ 
modate themselves to great alterations; feeling the influence of 
climate more extensively than the camiverous species, because 
there is added to it the influence of food. Thus we find that very 
slight alterations of food in our domestic animals are followed by 
either degeneracy or improvement . 
A country may date the improvement of her domestic animals 
from the time that civilization made its first advances by converting 
marshes into pasturage, and forests into fields ; and the com¬ 
mencement of their degeneracy, from the period when its state 
first exhibited a tendency towards falling from the virtues of their 
ancestors. Here a wide field presents itself for tracing the melio¬ 
ration or degeneracy of domestic animals in proportion to the 
rise or fall of civilization. 
Among the different arts, none have conferred so much good 
on mankind as agriculture. Before the means were known of re- 
* Recommended by Mr. Blaine, in his Canine Pathology. 
