1883.] THE AMERICAN TROTTING HORSE. 215 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 



The meeting was called to order at two o'clock, by Mr. 

 Day. 



The Chairman. I have been asked by several gentlemen, 

 on looking over this programme with them, how a Professor 

 in the Scientific School at New Haven could know anything 

 about " the trotting horse." The gentleman is here to answer 

 for himself, and when he gets through, you will know what 

 he knows about the trotting horse. 



THE AMERICAN TROTTING-HORSE ; WHY HE IS AND 



WHAT HE IS. 



By Professor Wm. H. Brewer, of Yale College. 



The American trotting-horse is a very xnodern production. Our 

 ancestors did not have the trotter, and what is more, did not want 

 him. Why they did not want him and consequently did not have 

 him, how it has come about that we do want him and consequently 

 have produced him, why he has been made, how he has been 

 made, and what he is made of, is my subject. 



As my audience is a mixed one, and not one of professional 

 breeders, I will say on the start that I do not purpose to discuss 

 the special blood or pedigree of any particular trotter or strain of 

 trotters; that is the subject of an abundant literature, and to be of 

 any use needs closer study than is possible in a popular lecture. 

 My aim is more especially to portray the influences which have led 

 to our breeding the trotter and the rich results already attained. 

 If I seem to ramble from the subject, remember that trotters them- 

 selves sometimes disappoint the spectators, and with lecturers as 

 with trotters, they may start well, but break and fall behind on the 

 course and win no record. 



The horse has been an essential factor in our civilization. What 

 kind of a civilization we might have attained without horses I 

 cannot say, but this much is certain, it would not and could not have 

 been anything like that we now have. Moreover, the higher the 

 enlightenment of a people, the greater the variety of uses to which 

 horses are applied, and the American trotting-horse is a special 

 product of the highest civilization the world has yet seen. 



