356 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



" Young Harry with his beaver on, 

 To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 

 ^ And witch the world with noble horsemanship ; " 



or makes personal and real, our own witty poet's invocation — 



" Ay ! gather your reins, and crack your thong, 

 And bid your steed go faster ; 

 lie does not know, as he rambles along 

 That he has a fool for his master," 



the horse is still submissive, faithful and true. All willingly, 

 he jogs the farmer's wife, and the farmer's corn to mill — all 

 willingly he gallops to the wedding or creeps to meeting. 

 With equal willingness he draws the gilded coach, and the un- 

 painted wagon ; he saws wood, sails ferry-boats, threshes grain, 

 wins golden cups at the Derby, and drags the railroad car 

 when the locomotive is tired. Saddled or " bare-back," har- 

 nessed or unharnessed, bitted or haltered, in rain or shine, 

 in summer and in winter, in the sands of Sahara, or threading 

 with cautious foot the defiles of the icy hill path, he is still 

 the same patient, proud, ambitious, faithful creature, thanking 

 you generously and warmly for every extra measure of oats, 

 and rebelling not, even when his dream of a warm stable, and 

 a well-filled manger, is broken by the crack of a whip, and the 

 stinging of the spur. 



Great improvements are being made every year in the breed 

 and quality of horses. Holding ourselves neutral, upon the 

 moral question involved in the temptation and associations of 

 the race-course and trotting-track, it must be conceded that the 

 efforts of horse-men, so called, in the development of great 

 bottom and speed for their own purposes of competition, have 

 also brought out, in a marked degree, those qualities which 

 have rendered the horse a far more valuable servant, than the 

 small, ungainly, and uncombed creature, which sneaked out of 

 the Ark, and was so little regarded in the time of the " Father 

 of the Faithful," that Moses left him out of the inventory, 

 when Isaac administered upon his estate, and carefully num- 

 bered his asses instead ! 



The light and beautiful symmetry of the Godolphin-Arabian, 

 was mingled with the tough, stout limbs of the Flanders mare ; 

 the strong-mouthed and heavy-headed French charger, crossed 

 with the graceful Andalusian ; the Norman English war-horse, 



