98 THE HORSE IN AMERICA 



of the Morgans. It is really, however, much more 

 interesting than important. The important thing 

 is to get a breed of horses ninety per cent of which 

 can go with reasonable speed, showing a clean, 

 square trot and graceful high action, and when at 

 top speed be free of clicking or forging or inter- 

 fering, performing in this manner, moreover, 

 without boots or hobbles and without effort, and 

 also without tiring even when the road is long. 

 And in the Morgans we have such a type. That 

 there should ever have been any danger that they 

 might have perished through neglect is a curious 

 chapter in the history of this country. It does not 

 properly belong in this place, but to that other 

 chapter which relates to the chicanery, the delu- 

 sions and absolute forgeries which are so inter- 

 woven with the history of the Standard Bred 

 trotter that good men believe in them though 

 they have been pointed out again and again with 

 elaborate detail and circumstance. 



The Morgans are being bred in many parts of 

 the country, more of them being in the Middle 

 and far West, probably, than in Vermont and the 

 rest of New England. Their blood is closely 



