239 
ON THE MANAGEMENT OF THE FARM HORSE. 
pedigree and good qualities, to entice owners of mares to have 
them served. Occasionally, entire horses may be found in this 
way possessing plenty of bone, muscle, and conformation ; but the 
great evil is, farmers pay too little attention to the mare : it is 
proverbial with many, “ if she is worth nothing else, she will 
do to breed from.” This very bad system must be eradicated in 
connexion with breeding : both animals must be perfect, as far as 
our judgment can discover, or else, as I have before stated, our 
breed of horses will never be generally good; but a mongrel race 
will still continue, and degeneration progress, if farmers or breeders 
do not pay more attention than has of late been done to the here¬ 
ditary transmission of disease. No one can expect a sound or a 
healthy animal from either sire or dam, if judgment with reference 
to form, constitution, and freedom from hereditary taint, has not 
been exercised. It is, therefore, not only incumbent on the Royal 
Agricultural Society, but also on every other provincial Agricul¬ 
tural Society from which premiums are awarded for horses, to 
have such competent judges as are able to discover any hereditary 
tendency to disease or defect in the animal capable of being trans¬ 
mitted to the offspring. If any disease or imperfection can be de¬ 
tected, such horse or horses should then be declared unfit for the 
propagation of stock. About six years since I first hinted this 
plan to the Royal Agricultural Society, having adopted it myself 
when I acted as a judge at the Devon Agricultural Society at 
Exeter. More than once I have witnessed awards of premiums 
adjudicated by incompetent persons to animals labouring under 
constitutional defect. Competent persons should be consulted to 
detect disease before any animal is bred from, either by the farmer 
or breeder; the adoption of such apian would tend, in a great 
measure, to banish hereditary disease and defect in our stock. 
What can be more productive of injury than awarding a prize to 
an animal having any constitutional disorganization 1 It is nothing 
more than granting a license for propagating disease. An entire 
horse gaining a premium at any Agricultural Society is imme¬ 
diately stamped as a good one, and blazoned all over the country as 
a nonsuch, although frequently entailing irreparable mischief. 
In breeding, the mare should not be less than five years old, 
although some farmers breed from mares when only three or four 
years old. It is not a commendable practice to breed from animals 
until nature is well developed in form, and every organ has ac¬ 
quired maturity; nature will then be more energetic in promoting 
the growth of the foetus. In breeding from young mares, the foetus 
must necessarily deprive her of those constituents required for the 
formation of her own frame. In the young mare, lactation is also 
very injurious, by depriving her of those organic and inorganic 
