VETERINARY INSPECTION OF BREEDING STALLIONS. 
413 
“ imported ” from an adjoining county and given a French, 
Scotch or Belgian name, as might best suit the conformation of 
the horse or the whim of seller or buyer. Many believe that 
any stallion grown in France or Scotland and having made the 
trip across the Atlantic, was good enough for breeding purposes 
and required no further guaranty. 
Many horses unfit for working purposes in France were sold 
cheap by their owners and shipped to this country to “ im¬ 
prove ” our stock, and on that account admitted duty free. 
Proper veterinary inspection should exclude these, either at 
the port of embarkation or the port of entry, and no stallion 
permitted to enter from a foreign country except upon such ex¬ 
amination added to any pedigree qualifications which it might 
be fitting to impose. 
In this way we would prevent imposition upon breeders, as 
well as the evasion of tariff laws. Not only should a defective 
stallion not be permitted to enter duty free, but he should not 
be allowed to enter at all. 
Equally gross errors occur in home bred animals, even in 
the trotter, which is purely American. Because of illustri¬ 
ous ancestors, however remote, a stallion was thought qualified 
as a sire, regardless of defects which would totally unfit him for 
any legitimate use in this country where beef is cheap. During 
the recent boom, trotting stallions with long pedigrees were 
kept for public use at such figures that had he been castrated 
and placed upon the best markets of the country, would not 
have sold for the price of four service fees. 
Some laws have even been enacted, permitting such stallions 
a state license upon pedigree alone, thus entrapping the state 
into a quasi approval of the animal wholly upon pedigree, 
though bearing serious defects which would unavoidably be 
transmitted to his offspring. 
In our judgment then veterinary inspection of stallions 
should be based primarily upon the fitness of such animals to 
sire sound foals, which would remain sound at their allotted work. 
ff'he details of a plan would vary in different communities. 
