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Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland (v. 7)
Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland - v. 7 Author:Henry Mackenzie Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: defects, however slight, did not occur in both ; for it is a fact, stated by Sir John Sebrightand which has uniformly been proved by my own experience, that it i... more »s not always by putting the best male to the best female, that the best produce will be obtained; for, should they both have a tendency to the same defect, although, in ever so slight a degree, it will, in general, preponderate so much in the produce as to render it of little value. I found the truth of this in a very striking instance, about ten years ago. Having a cart mare of a very superior description, (and which has twice gained premiums at agricultural shows), I looked out for a first rate stallion, intending to breed from her. At that time a horse, belonging to Mr Bu- chan near Cricff, called Blaize, was carrying all before him . I thought I could not do better than breed from this horse, not taking into consideration that both sire and dam were of the same make, viz. rather long in the leg; the consequence was, that I had a very fine foal, to be sure, but with longer legs than either of the parents. The next time, I had learned to correct my former error, and bred from a short legged horse from Cheshire, which was a great cross to my Scotch mare, and also differed from her in shape. The effect was immediately visible. I had a mare, which it would be difficult to produce an equal to, the leg not being so short as the father's, although the whole appearance much resembled him, nor quite so long as that of the dam. Another very striking instance of this came under my notice a few years ago. A friend of mine (General Burnett) had a mare what is called three parts bred, certainly a very fine mare to breed from, but a very tall mare with long legs, which was put to the longest This horse generally cleared £ ISO p...« less