144 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



and blood. On this basis of reasoning, which involves no im- 

 probabilities, we may conclude that the same proportion of the 

 horses from Picardy were natural pacers. 



There is another theory, giving the Canadian pacer an Anglo- 

 American origin, that commends itself to the unbiased judgment 

 with even greater force than the one just suggested. Various 

 writers have talked about the "French characteristics" of the 

 Canadian pacer, and all that, when probably not one of them ever 

 saw a horse that he Tcnew to be French. The early pacers the 

 pacing-bred pacers ^all have more or less strongly marked resem- 

 blances, especially in conformation, and it makes no difference 

 whether they come from Canada or whether their habitat has 

 been south of Mason and Oixon's line for two hundred and fifty 

 years. When we look at a pacer, therefore, we may as well be 

 honest and say we don't know whether he resembles the horses 

 that reached the St. Lawrence in 1665, or those that reached 

 Massachusetts Bay in 1629. The theory that the French Cana- 

 dians got the foundation of their pacing stock from the New 

 England colonies rests upon two well-known facts. First, the 

 colonies had a great abundance of such horses for sale; and second, 

 they were within reach of and purchasable by the Canadians. To 

 these two facts rendering the theory possible, we have others 

 which render it probable. The jealous restrictions sought to be 

 imposed on both the English and French colonists by the home 

 governments of both people strongly indicate that there was no 

 small amount of illicit trading, and this trading, in the very 

 nature of things, must have been between the English and French. 

 Toward the close of the seventeenth century the English colo- 

 nies, especially Rhode Island, had far more horses than they 

 needed for home use, and they did a thriving business in export- 

 ing them to different parts. These were just the kind of horses 

 the Canadians needed for their wild life in the wilderness; they 

 were cheaper than they could be brought from France; the 

 water way of Lake Champlain was convenient; pelts and furs 

 were a desirable commodity of exchange, and there was no cordon 

 of customs officers to keep the willing traders apart. Of these 

 theories we consider the second the more probable of the two, 

 and if we accept it we reach the conclusion that the so-called 

 * 'French" Canadian pacer is merely a descendant of the old Eng- 

 lish pacer brought over by the early New England colonists. 

 Objection has been presented to this theory, on the grounds that 



