122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



twenty-five as a man of seventy, etc. Men live to be ninety 

 and horses may live to be thirty-five ; both are uncommon 

 ages, and neither useful for labor. 



I prefer old horses ; they are more way-wise and more to 

 be trusted. I have several in use ; the youngest is fourteen, 

 the next oldest is sixteen, the next nineteen, two are not 

 less than twenty-five. The oldest two are not very useful ; 

 one of them is laid up part of the time with rheumatism, 

 and I think both of them, and all the horses I have ever had, 

 have not been generally useful after twenty-five. One of 

 the best I have ever known was physically strong and able 

 at thirty, but showed mental failure so as to be dangerous. 



Mr. Wheeler. I would like to ask how the lecturer ac- 

 counts for the change in the Percheron. If I understand 

 him rightly, the Percheron is a descendant of the Arab. 



Mr. Russell. I should have said that the Percheron is 

 not a thoroughbred horse. The Percheron is believed to 

 have had his origin and to have derived his qualities from 

 the Arabs that were left in France from the Saracen inva- 

 sion, but he has been bred for greater size and crossed with 

 heavy horses brought from any part of Europe. Many of 

 the dams of the Percheron horse probably have been heavy 

 Flanders mares. The improvement of the Percheron horse 

 has not been confined in later days to crossing with the 

 Arab, or even the reinforcement of the blood from the Arab. 

 They have used thoroughbred English horses at times, and 

 also horses from other breeds, so it is a composite race. 



Mr. Fenn (of Milford, Conn.). Mr. Chairman, I would 

 like to ask Mr. Russell if the knife should be used upon the 

 heels of the horse at all. I object to that. When the black- 

 smith shoes my horse I tell him to never put the knife to 

 the heels of the horse. 



Mr. Russell. You are very nearly right about that, be- 

 cause a horse's foot grows forward almost entirely. It grows 

 at the toe. You may have seen horses that have been long 

 in pasture ; in a season their feet will grow so that they will 

 turn up. I have seen wild horses in Central America on 

 low lands whose feet have turned up during the wet season 

 and curled over ; often they get so disabled by the growth 



