Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1894-10-19

reason that the origin Al negro blood has been
so minimized In transmission rs not to be
counted. Aud thus Justin Morgan's blood Is
not thousandth part of what courses in the
veins OF any living animal, though IT may be
true that twenty or thirty out OF the 20lG pos.
sblc prOgcniiors descended from Justin Mr..
Borden, in his zeal, dIsregards the laws OF de.
scent.
It was my ill.iortune two years ago to be.
come the owner of what was AS pure blood
ed" % Morgan stallion as exists, and a.
more willtul sluggish, unreliable brute new.
er owned. turned him into geding, and
nnding him not imprOved. / gave him away.
Mr.. Borden has been more lucky than was.
have since driven English Hackneys and
have as yet hao no use Tor whip. They are
Tree drivers and have endurance ana strength.
Yours, etc, WILLIAM BlRNEY.
Washington u. Sept a. lS4
Mr.. Birney's first trouble appears to be-
gin with the Morgan Stud Book. In 1857
Mr.. Linsley of this place published an
excellent little work entitled Morgan
Horses, in which the pedigrees of quite
a number of the most famous sires of that
family we're carefully given. This last sea-
son have published an extended work on
the Morgan horse, including VOL |. of the
Register. This work Is composed of over
one thousand pages and embOdies the re-
pedigrees and history of this family, in
which most of the time several, and some
of the time eight or ten he lpers have been
employed. We feel sure it is not affirm.
ing too much to say that no work on the
horse in this country, and probably not
in the world. has ever been published. in
which to much painstaking effort has
been made to arrive at accurate and
truthful results. In addition, the great
est care has been taken to distinguish be-
tween what was known and what might
be considered doubtful. In no instance
do we affirm the pedigree of an animal as
certain unless we know the breeder Of
that animal. In every case where the eX-
tension of a pedigree is carried out with
out this knowledge, it is done with a
"said to be-" No such care has ever been
taken before, so far as We know. in the
compilation of book of pedigrees, and
we can assure Mr.. Birney that he may be
reasonably certain of the results arrived
at in this volume.
Mr.. B. 5 second trouble seems to be il
the amount of the original Morgan''
blood that is carried by representative.
of the family that are living today. he
thinks there is not one-thousandth part
the fact being, that from the rules of reg
istratiOn, no animal has been admitted L
the Register that has not at least ont
L.; a., - l.,
follows that no animal to be registered
hereafter can have less than this amount
Most of them have very much more. Th
only possible exception is in the case o
several horses that have been admitted a
foundation stock, whose resemblance t,
the Morgan was very great. and who's
derivation from the Morgan seemed yer,
certain, although not absolutely proven
Mr.. b. will see that he did not compre
bend what he was talking about, not a
extraordinary condition, we admit, but
nevertheless. one that detracts very SER
Ously from the value of what one says.
As we have stated above, the Morga
Register requires the amount of blood o
the original Morgan that will come in on
line in six generations. Mr.. B. is quit
fine on the blood of the negro. but has
ever occurred TO him that family, tn
Birney family, for instance, keeps nc
only its name but its characteristics tC
more than six generations.
1t seems that Mr.. Birney thinks he ono
owned a poor Morgan stallion. Wei
that is quite possible. There are poor al
finals in every breed, and if Mr.. B.
Judgment on horses is not better than hi
arithmetic, we are not surprised at hi
having bought a very poor one. An
= yet, as the great majority of the Morgan
= are good animals. we are quite anXiou
( to know the breeding of the one Mr..
| had. We shouldn't be surprised if it is
1 Percheron he is thinking of or a Shetan
: pony. VIII Mr.. b. please tell us VIII
bred the horse and his breeding:
Truly yours, JOSEPH BATTELL.