1883.] THE AMERICAN TROTTING HORSE. 219 



natural and part social, and the trotter is another instance of this 

 kind of evolution. 



The American trotting-horse cannot yet be called a definite 

 breed ; it is rather a most instructive example of a breed in the 

 process of formation, a new breed just being moulded into shape 

 by a curious combination of influences. To trot fast has not here- 

 tofore been natural to horses; we are in the act of making a breed 

 in which it is the natural gait when at speed, and the next century 

 will see a breed of trotters with two-minute horses as common as 

 one minute fifty second runners now are. The breed is in process 

 of evolution, in obedience to definite laws, to meet wants imposed 

 by the new phases of our modern civilization. 



Although applied to a great multitude of uses, down to a hun- 

 dred years the horse has had its greatest value as an implement 

 of war and of ceremony. All other uses were subordinate to 

 these. For these he was doubtless brought into Egypt, for these 

 Solomon imported horses, and Greece, and Spain, and England, — 

 for these uses there are government establishments for breeding 

 and improving horses in most European countries to day. 



Until ai'tillery and baggage-wagon trains accompanied armies, 

 the war-horse was emphatically a horse for riding. Chariots were 

 sometimes seen, but their use was but as a trifle compared with 

 the great use of the horses, which was to carry a rider or to carry 

 a burden — that is, riding- horses and pack-horses. For this, the 

 best animal is one not too large; it must have strength, endurance, 

 intelligence, courage, and if for riding, a variety of gaits. This 

 last is a most desirable quality, that the change of gait may be a 

 relief to both horse and rider on long marches. Any one who 

 has had to ride by the hundred leagues on a stretch knows what 

 that is. With this, as well as with pack-horses, I have had a feel- 

 ing, personal experience, having in one work ridden horse or mule 

 over twelve thousand miles. This very week, an aged man, talk- 

 ing of his long business trips through the south sixty years ago, 

 told me of an especially excellent horse "with four gaits." 



The horse of war and the horse of ceremony remained for ages 

 essentially a riding -horse. For this use certain Oriental breeds have 

 been noted from ancient time — the Persian, Arabian, Turkish, and 

 the Baa-b — and their blood is mingled in various modem breeds, 

 still constituting the best riding horses in the world. 



Besides their physical characters, their dispositions and instincts 



