THE HORSE HISTORY. 509 



activity; he must have the pluck and endurance, the bone and 

 hoof of the Canadian or the mule, and yet have more size and 

 tractability. 



The farmer's horse must be handy, hardy, prompt, docile, 

 and true as steel. His size must be from fifteen and three-quar- 

 ters to sixteen and one-quarter hands, and weight from eleven 

 hundred to fifteen hundred pounds. He is neither a race-horse, 

 saddle-horse, nor cart-horse. A level-headed, compactly made 

 trotter comes nearer his ideal than any yet developed. The 

 farmer's horse is yet in the future. The horses found with action, 

 spirit, and pluck enough to suit him on the road to church, or 

 to the village are not usually docile and patient enough at the 

 plow, or in the mud with a heavy load. Occasionally a strain 

 of horses has occurred in the history of breeding which has 

 given ideal horses, but there has not been found the breeder 

 with intelligence and wealth to persist in breeding on that line 

 to establish a well-defined type. The farmer's horse of to- 

 day is a conglomerate of no well-defined characteristics; so illy 

 bred, and having so many scrub crosses, that no one can pre- 

 dict what the foal may be from the best bred sire. So uncertain 

 is the first cross of a well bred horse on these nondescript mares 

 that many farmers, nay the majority, claim that it does not pay 

 to breed to a well bred horse. Until the principles of breeding 

 are far better understood by horse owners generally, we may 

 not hope to soon realize our ideal of the farmer's horse. 



The Saddle Horse. The day was in Kentucky, Virginia, 

 and Ohio when every farmer owned a horse that would carry the 

 rider with ease, on a walk of four to five miles per hour, and 

 rack or pace eight to ten miles an hour the livelong day. The 

 advent of good roads and light vehicles has supplanted this most 

 useful and economical animal on the farm. In his stead has 

 come the half-bred trotting-horse that can not walk a mile in ten 

 minutes, or trot in five ; instead of the saddle and bridle, come 

 the buggy and harness, costing double that of the kindly and 

 ever ready saddle-horse of the last generation. 



We are glad to note the fact that a demand for good saddle- 

 horses is again springing up, and that the people are recognizing 



