1 62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



racers and their wonderful feats, and a little about 

 the European draft breeds which were then in pro- 

 cess of formation. Although I found in them 

 much " horsey " talk and brag, I found almost 

 nothing that would be of use to an American 

 farmer. 



Here was a great opening for original work. 

 It appeared to me that farmers should know how 

 to tell the age of a horse with a reasonable degree 

 of certainty; and hearing that many rather young 

 horses had recently died of an epidemic in the im- 

 mediate neighborhood, I had two farm hands dig 

 them up and preserved the heads and some special 

 parts and such limbs as had been malformed by 

 disease. By careful inquiry I was able to fix ac- 

 curately the ages of most of these animals. Ar- 

 ranging my material on a workbench in the open, 

 I placed the class on the windward side and taught 

 them the fundamental principles of horse denti- 

 tion. I have found it difficult to give students a 

 WORKING knowledge of this subject and so have 

 given great attention to it in my book on The 

 Horse. 



These few illustrations will serve to show how 

 difficult it was in those early days to teach agricul- 

 ture and to find proper illustrative material. There 

 was no well-worn trail to follow as there is now, 



