TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 379 



Field labor was performed by oxen, except in Pennsyl- 

 vania and New York where Flemish horses had been intro- 

 duced from Holland. This Flemish horse was; as we have al- 

 ready seen, a large and rather ungainly animal, and when the 

 colonies expanded westward, this horse was used to haul freight 

 over the mountains from eastern ports to Pittsburg and Wheel- 

 ing. It required 12,000 wagons annually, each pulled by four 

 or six horses, driven tandem, to carry on the vast freighting 

 business which developed, and the freight bill amounted to 

 $1,500,000 in a year. The wagons were called Conestoga wagons, 

 and the horses were given the same name. With the coming of 

 the railroad and the river boat, the Conestoga horses and wagons 

 were quickly displaced and no further efforts were made to 

 breed heavy horses in America until very recent times. The 

 blood of the Conestoga was absorbed into the common stock 

 of the country and the type became extinct. Thus we see that 

 colonial horse stocks were of three types only: (1) the little 

 saddle horse, (2) the Thoroughbred, and (3) the Conestoga. 



Origin of the roadster type. With the opening of road- 

 ways, vehicles were quickly brought into use, so quickly indeed 

 that the so-called roads over which they were driven were little 

 more than clearings through the woods with here and there a 

 "corduroy" of logs to make passable some marshy spot. The 

 roads were first improved in the more thickly settled parts of 

 the country, and it was thus about Philadelphia that the road- 

 ster type of horse was originated at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century in response to the demand for a horse suitable 

 for road driving and harness racing. The American trotting 

 horse or roadster was derived from four sources: (1) the Eng- 

 lish Thoroughbred, (2) the Norfolk Trotter, (3) the Arab and 

 Barb, and (4) certain pacers of mixed breeding, By selecting 

 and breeding for speed at the trot, the American Trotter has 

 been developed and today may be called a true breed, although 

 the individuals composing it show considerable divergence in 

 type. In Vermont the Morgan horse was developed. The 

 Morgans descended from one horse, Justin Morgan, whose sire 

 was a Thoroughbred, but whose dam was of unknown breeding. 

 While often regarded as a distinct breed, they really constitute 

 one family of the American Trotter. 



American Saddle Horse. At the time roads were being 

 improved in the East, Kentucky and the West were still a country 

 of bridle paths only. The blue-grass region of Kentucky is 



