128 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



is demanded in the market, then it should be stopped. That it is 

 allowed to engross too much attention, I will not gainsay. Who 

 are to blame, the managers of a society, and the judges who 

 control the exercises, or the jockeys and roughs of society ? If 

 trustees make suitable rules, select suitable judges, and have 

 spunk enough to control such occasions subject to their views, I 

 Bee no reason of complaint. Men will bet upon the relative speed 

 of horses, so they will upon elections, the probable condition of 

 the money market, and shall all such exciting measures be lain 

 aside, entirely as a sanitary measure, because a few men bet, or a 

 society cannot get talent enough to apply a remedy ? 



Maine has 100,000 horses. Is it out of proportion to assume 

 tliat 20 per cent, of all are bred to speed for gentlemen's road and 

 pleasure use ? Hardly a breeder that does not wish that all were 

 speedy. Allow $200 to be an average price (and it is far 

 below for this class) you would have quarter of a million of dollars in 

 fast horses in this State. Now will not their training and public 

 exposition be likely to increase their value from 25 to 50 per cent.? 

 Yet this increase must be given up because ability enough cannot 

 be displayed in the management of societies to control the bad 

 tendencies. 



Fast fine horses are wanted in the market, and so are wheat and 

 barley. Should encouragement be withdrawn from all, because 

 whiskey and beer are made from them, or money is bet upon thie 

 trials of horses ? The man who breeds horses pays taxes as well 

 as the breeder of cattle and sheep, and his rights ought to be 

 respected with others, especially when his efforts bring out cash 

 to pay premiums to all. 



Push him out, and is the community bettered by his having 

 these trials by himself? The 'people will certainly go to see a 

 good horse trot. And if once a year a community can spend a 

 day or two and see cattle and sheep, and swine, and farm products, 

 and horses, and have the pleasure of seeing them show their firte 

 points and action, it cannot fail to bring a crowd, and give satis- 

 faction. I have been breeding horses 20 years, and attending 

 legitimate exhibitions of horses at societies' exhibitions, and have 

 Been no occasion to think less of mj^self, that I have been engaged 

 in breeding fast horses. Nor do I believe I have lost the respect 

 0(f the public because I have added this interest to the other 

 interests in breeding, or of agriculture in which 1 engage. As 

 to the general influences which the rearing of horses has upon 



