10 ON BREEDING. 
sure can only be recommended when no other method will an¬ 
swer his purpose. In this case, it is necessary that the greatest 
discrimination and circumspection should be employed to adapt 
the animals in the most perfect manner to the nature of the im¬ 
provement which is required; for, as we before stated, so much 
uncertainty attends even the best possible method of breeding, 
that w herever attention has been paid by breeding from the best 
and most perfect animals of their kind, the breeder has been of¬ 
tentimes disappointed, and has been doomed to see his bright 
prospects “ flit like the passing cloud.” 
If disappointment then ensues, where the greatest care has 
been paid, we need not wonder to see confusion and mis¬ 
management the effect of breeding from animals that differ in 
breed, figure, action, and manner of living. 
In every instance of a cross, the female should be as large, if 
not larger, than the male. Experience teaches this plan as the 
best, it having been long practised by our ancestors. 
Passnm multa tibi veterum praecepta referre, 
Ni refugis, tenuesque piget cognoscere curas. Virgil. 
Nor thou the rules our fathers taught despise. 
Sires, by long practice and tradition wise. Sotheby. 
we being indebted for our present breed of racers entirely to 
crossing the indigenous mare w ith the diminutive eastern stallion . 
To attempt to improve a breed by putting small mares to large 
stallions is madness. It is a fruitless effort to counteract the laws 
of nature; for, in proportion as the male is larger than the fe¬ 
male, the offspring becomes deteriorated in form, and is generally 
narrow r chested, long legged, less hardy, and very liable to dis¬ 
ease. 
“ When it became the fashion in London to drive very large 
horses, the farmers in Yorkshire put their mares to much larger 
stallions than usual, and thus did infinite mischief to their breed, 
by producing a race of small chested, long legged, large boned, 
w orthless animals. 
“ A similar project was adopted in Normandy, to enlarge the 
breed of horses there, by the use of stallions from Holstein; 
and, in consequence, the best breed of horses in France would 
have been spoiled, had not farmers discovered their mistake in 
time, by observing the offspring much inferior in form to that of 
the native stallions. When the male is much larger than the fe¬ 
male, the offspring is generally of an imperfect form. If the 
female be proportion ably larger than the male, the offspring is of 
an improved form ; for instance, if a well formed large ram be 
put to ew 7 es proportionably smaller, the lambs will not be so well 
