514 
EDITORIAL. 
on a large scale; at one time from 350 selected mares, and found 
no difficulty about color by careful avoidance of white in excess, 
nor with bone and stamina by careful selection.” In another part 
of his letter he says: “ My agent in Scotland and others complain 
of the difficulty, yearly increasing, of being able to buy just what 
I want. I can realize the truth of this by noticing the awards at 
shows to Clydes with white faces, legs white to the body and 
splotches of white on sides "and thighs. The old saving* that ‘a 
good horse is never of a bad color,’ may be true in many cases, 
but I cannot believe that he would not be as good if he was of a 
good color. I know he is more attractive, should be more salable 
and bring more money." Continuing, he says: “Another result 
of in and in breeding is that the males are less sure in foal get¬ 
ting, and whether due to the stallions or the mares, foals die more 
frequently from one ailment or another between birth and wean¬ 
ing time. Few stallions nowadays successfully impregnate more 
than 50 per cent, of the mares they serve. The result is much 
loss and disappointment to the owners of mares, and loss of in¬ 
come to the stallion owner. Most deterioration and arrest of im¬ 
provement, however, arises from ignorance or penuriousness of 
the average mare owner, who will, in spite of every advice, breed 
to cheap stallions, ignoring entirely the common laws of success¬ 
ful mating. Such men also fail to realize the importance of lib¬ 
eral feeding of the foal for the first three years of its life.” We 
have taken the liberty of quoting from this gentleman’s letter that 
our readers might have the benefit of the opinions expressed in it 
at this time, and hope at some future time to have an article from 
him, at which time his name will be published. The subject of 
incestuous breeding is certainly an interesting one, and an im¬ 
portant one, since its use to a greater or less extent is essential 
in improving and fixing type. It seems to have been used suc¬ 
cessfully by Robert Bakewell, of England, the celebrated im¬ 
prover of Leicestershire sheep and Longhorn cattle in the 
eighteenth century. And from experiments made by Schroeder 
on guinea pigs some years ago, lie demonstrated that, with that 
animal at least, if you selected absolutely physically perfect in- 
