122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



excellent condition from the frozen snows of Iceland to the scorch- 

 ing plains of Africa. 



Now without going over the ground covered by a consideration 

 of the antiquity of the horse, and the various types of the animal 

 which have existed or may now be found in the dififerent countries 

 of the globe — it is more to our purpose to come at once to the 

 horses of the present day, and the part they fill in our business, 

 industries and pleasure. But it may be said in passing rapidly to 

 this point, that the different types of the modern horse have 

 been the work of judicious selection and breeding in a given 

 direction for a long series of years. Thus have been produced 

 the hunter, the runner, the cab horse, the trotter, the cart horse, 

 the dray horse, and numerous other fancy varieties, so common 

 in England, and on the continent of Europe. In our own country, 

 where the people have not adopted all the customs and ways of 

 our relatives over the water, fewer types are found, and a classifi- 

 cation of our horses would embrace but three, or at most four 

 distinct varieties — the trotter or the American thoroughbred, the 

 horse of all work, the gentleman's driving horse and the heavy 

 horse used exclusively for purposes of draught. But though we 

 have fewer local distinctions in our breeds of horses, and breed 

 less for fancy uses than do the people of the Old World, we have 

 so bred the horse in this country within the past twenty or thirty 

 years, as to command the attention and merit the applause of the 

 best breeders and best judges of horses in the world. What 

 nation of the Old World can show better samples of horseflesh that 

 has been produced in the States of Kentucky, Ohio, Mississippi, 

 Illinois, New York, and many others ; — what nation can show 

 finer style and action, better breeding, greater endurance or a 

 faster step than can be shown by the horses of these same States ? 

 Our private studs, and our famous trotters, almost surpass the 

 world, and the achievements of Flora Temple, Dexter, Goldsmith 

 Maid, American Girl, Smuggler, Fullerton, Occident, Lula and a 

 host of other famous trotters, have made the people of the Old 

 World fairly stare with wonder ; while in the matter of breeding, 

 private citizens in our own country have performed, what in other 

 nations is only carried out under the patronage of Government. 

 This interest in the breeding, training, handling and trotting — if 

 you please — of horses, has been growing and increasing and de- 

 veloping all over our country, during the past dozen or twenty 

 years ; and has now in its various interests sub-divisions and 



