PREFACE. 



The "Transactions" of the various societies receiving aid from 

 the Commonwealth, ought to give evidence of an earnest desire to 

 comply with the spirit, as well as the letter, of the law, and grow 

 stronger and better, more and more instructive and useful every 

 year. The diffusion of information, which every society has it in 

 its power to obtain, through its premium list and the reports of its 

 committees, ought to be regarded as a most direct and important 

 means of doing good, and of fulfilling its mission. The record of 

 the doings of the societies for the past year, is not up to a reason- 

 able standard of value and ability. 



I am indebted to Col. Henry S. Russell, of Home Farm, Mil- 

 ton, for the admirable likeness of "Smuggler," drawn and engraved 

 expressly for this Report. This celebrated stallion, foaled near 

 Columbus, Ohio, in April, 1866, was taken to Kansas when two 

 years old, and there kept for saddle and farm-work till the fall of 

 1872, when he was, for the first time, handled' as a trotter ; his gait 

 up to that time had been a pace, but his readiness to adopt the 

 trot, as well as the length and power of his stride, encouraged his 

 owner to hope for the speed which last season so astonished the 

 whole countr} r . 



When we remember that " Smuggler " obtained, in his first race, a 

 record faster than that of all other stallions, with years of training 

 and experience, and six weeks afterward won the Champion Purse 

 in still faster time, trotting the third heat in 2.20, we must admit 

 that he bids fair, if kept in training, to show himself the fastest 

 trotter ever bred. 



He was sired by " Blanco " ; he by " Iron's Cadmus " ; he by 

 "Cadmus"; he by "American Eclipse," — running back to the 



