278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



few will have anj"- effect against the will of the many, if that effort is 

 exertei ia opposition to the popular necessity. It would seem b3tter 

 that we should candidly examine both the advantages and dangers of 

 connecting a trotting course with the farmers' arrangements for the 

 autumnal agricultural festivals, so that while we guard against evil 

 results on the one hand, we may enable the farmer to secure the 

 benefits to which, as the original breeder of the horse, he is justly 

 entitled. The firmer who.raises a promising colt is rarely a profound 

 judge of his best points, or of the beneficial effects of proper tr lining 

 to secure the full advantages of his good properties. The colt is for 

 sale, and without adequate trial, his owner feels himself highly re- 

 warded, if he secuies from his trainer seventy-five or one hundred 

 dollars as his market value, and il; is not seldom that he is made 

 deeply to regret that he had not tested the speed of his colt, previ- 

 ously to throwing him into the market, when he learns that a few 

 weeks of careful training, have, in some instances, even quadrupled 

 his miirkct value. A proper opportunity, then, of testing the speed of 

 a colt would often secure to the farmer the advantages of an increased 

 price, and at the same time lessfen the importance of that any thing 

 but respectable class in society, the fraternity of horse jockeys. This 

 is by no means a light consideration, when, from every side we hear 

 the complaint that farming is a losing business. 



It has been objected by many that the farmer has no necessity for 

 a very fast horse ; but, under proper training, a fast horse may be 

 easily made to work well upon the farm in all departments where 

 such animal is needed, the error arising from the disposition to con- 

 nect great speed with vicious propensities. In this view of the sub- 

 ject, the addition of an exhibition of trotting horses to our cattle 

 shows — under proper restrictions — is valuable and important. It is 

 by no means unlikely that such exhibitions as those now under con- 

 sideration, may tend to take the management of horse shows from 

 the hands of the low and vicious, and to transfer it to men of higher 

 character, if it should not happen on the contrary that the kind of 

 excitement usually attending such occasions, may tend to lower the 

 taste of the committees in charge of them and by degrees draw the 

 farmer down to the jockey level. Your committee, however, believe 

 that in all its bearings upon the pecuniary interest of the farming 

 community far more good will result from properly directed horse 

 shows in connection with other farm products, than evils to the farmer 

 himself. This being conceded, we proceed lo consider the moral 

 bearings of the subject. There is probably nothing which will draw 

 together a larger collection of unprincipled men and boys, than the 

 public announcement of a "horse race," to be witnessed by all 



