OVER AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
539 
either whilst standing or in action ; fore legs well set under 
him, arms large and muscular, knees large and flat, legs 
large, clean, and firm; pasterns strong and moderately 
oblique, feet strong and moderately large and deep; heels 
wide and open, action light, quick, and true; he should be 
mild and gentle in temper, and possess, in the highest degree, 
the power of standing under and moving heavy weights. It 
is of the greatest importance that all unsound and defective 
stallions should be excluded, and on no account used. With 
this view I advise that none be used which, in addition to 
the qualifications I have pointed out, whose owners do not 
produce a clear and unqualified certificate of soundness and 
freedom from all hereditary defects dated at the commence¬ 
ment of the season, and signed by one or more veterinary 
surgeons of acknowledged ability and position,.and also one 
certifying to his fecundity. If these conditions are reso¬ 
lutely demanded, it will drive away all the unsound and im¬ 
potent stallions that are doing serious injury to breeding and 
to the breeder's profit. I must again impress upon you the 
importance of this, and in proof I can state that I have 
known a given disease imparted to colts of certain horses 
with as much certainty as character and colour. I have 
known, in scores of instances, the colts of a particular horse 
to become roarers, in others to have ophthalmia; the colts 
of other horses, in equal number, to have ring bones; the 
colts of others to have spavins ; of others bursal enlargement 
of the joints ; of others umbilical hernia ; and in one season 
I have myself operated for this disease on twenty colts, all 
got by the same horse. With these facts before us, I am 
sure I am right in asking you to commence by only using 
perfectly sound stallions, for if unsound ones are used, every 
colt they get is likely to inherit their sire's diseases and 
defects, and where, as is commonly the case (in travelling 
stallions), a horse will get a hundred and fifty or more foals 
in a season, the injury becomes something very serious. We 
now turn our attention to the brood mare, and I must here 
again state that soundness is as essential and indispensable 
in the mare as in the stallion, and I advise you to reject all 
unsound and defective mares from your breeding stud; the 
first class of which, in a national point of view, is the 
thorough blood mare; but as racing now has become a busi¬ 
ness exclusive and of itself, requiring large capital, time, 
thought, and associations not compatible with tenant farming, 
I do not advise its adoption by my hearers ; but should cir¬ 
cumstances occur that the farmer is induced to try his hand 
at breeding blood stock, let him breed only from mares that 
