280 THE FAT OF THE LAND 



grow on the bushes in our neighborhood. I drew 

 a line at these things, however, and decided that 

 they should not swell the farm account. Thus 

 I keep from the reader's eye some of the foolish- 

 ness of a doting parent who has always been as 

 warm wax in the hands of his, nearly always, 

 reasonable children. 



In my stable were two Kentucky-bred saddlers 

 of much more than average quality, for they had 

 strains of warm blood in their veins. There is 

 no question nowadays as to the value of warm 

 blood in either riding or driving horses. It gives 

 ability, endurance, courage, and docility beyond 

 expectation. One-sixteenth thorough blood will, 

 in many animals, dominate the fifteen-sixteenths 

 of cold blood, and prove its virtue by unusual 

 endurance, stamina, and wearing capacity. 



The blue-grass region of Kentucky has furnished 

 some of the finest horses in the world, and I have 

 owned several which gave grand service until 

 they were eighteen or twenty years old. An 

 honest horseman at Paris, Kentucky, has sold 

 me a dozen or more, and I was willing to trust 

 his judgment for a saddler for Jane. My request 

 to him was for a light-built horse ; weight, one 

 thousand pounds ; game and spirited, but safe 

 for a woman, and one broken to jump. Every- 

 thing else, including price, was left to him. 



In good time Jane's horse came, and we were 

 well pleased with it, as indeed we ought to have 

 been. My Paris man wrote : " I send a bay 



