MONTHLY 



JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



NO. 2. 



AUGUST, 1845. 



VOL. I. 



LADY SUFFOLK. 



A DISSERTATION ON HORSE BREEDING, AND ON THE TROTTING HORSE OF THE U. STATES. 



Ah! What is this we have here? says the 

 Btaid and sober farmer, as, on coming in from 

 his daily round, he puts aside his sombrero, and 

 takes up the Farmers' Library, to beguile 

 tlie time, while the thrifty housewife is spread- 

 ing his frugal repast. ^Vhat do I see ? Lady 

 Suffolk ! the cynosure of all observers ; the 

 very pink and Fashion of the day on evei-j' 

 Trotting Theatre ! And is it then a part of the 

 design of a work which is offered for our in- 

 struction and amusement, to encourage and 

 illustrate such diversions ? No ! good reader, 

 not at all ! There is, says the good book itself, a 

 time for all things, as there is a place for all 

 things; and the place for all field amusements, 

 in our country, is the " Spirit of the Times." 

 Far fiom wishing to poach on the manor of our 

 friend Porter much rather viould we assist in 

 stocking it with choice game — but who besides 

 Neptune can wield his own Trident ! Who 

 but himself, wear the armor of Achilles ! and 

 besides, as we well remember, he did once 

 come very near taking the wind out of our sails^ 

 w^hereupon we surrendered to his management 

 and direction, the whole field of rural sports, 

 and have ever since most heartily wished that 

 his success might only equal his spirit, — may he 

 never be at a loss for the where, and the where- 

 withal, to wet his line and his — whistle ; and 

 may he never thro\v fly, without hooking a 

 trout. 



No, gentle, sedate, and courteous reader ; we 

 have been at some trouble and expense to pro- 

 cure and offer j'ou a portraiture of Lady Suffolk, 

 for the sake of presentirig to the eye of the prac- 

 tical fanner, as well as the amateur of horse 

 flesh, who may or may not be horse breeders, 

 tlie true foi-m and points, as nearly as the arts at 

 (173) 5 



our command would enable us ; of an animal the 

 most distinguished in that form of action, the 

 trot, which of all equestrian paces deserves to 

 be regarded as the 7nost useful in the business 

 of life ; unless it be, what he " of Roanoke " de- 

 nominated, the " long slouching walk of the 

 blood horse in the plow." 



Although, as may be seen in our edition of 

 " YouATT AND Skinner on the Horse," pub- 

 lished by Lea & Blanchard of Philadelphia, we 

 had given accounts of many of Lady Suffolk's 

 most distinguished feats, we had never had the 

 pleasure to see her until today,nor, that we 

 remember, had we inquired particularly, cer- 

 tainly not successfully, into her genealogy. But 

 seeing how she had gone, both the pace and 

 the distance, we never doubted, that whenever 

 it should be traced, it would be found to be of 

 high aristocratic blood. Hence, when we came 

 now, as in duty bound, to look into her lineage, it 

 occasioned not the least surprise to find it tracing 

 through more than one stream, directly to the 

 fountain of so much that is superexcellent in 

 horseology — to wit : to the loins of old Messen- 

 ger himself f In truth, when we reflected on 

 her birthplace — Long-Island — and came to sec 

 her veins so well defined — her apparently hard 

 bone — her large, open jaws — prodigious muscu- 

 lar development, and yet more, her grey color, 

 and the way she carries her age, we should 

 have been disappointed not to find at her heart 

 something of the same strain of blood that 

 confen-ed similar power on her near i-elatives, 

 Mamhrino and Ahdalla — son and grandson of 

 Messenger — trotters and the getters of trotters. 



According to the best information we have 

 been able to get, Lady Suffolk was by Engi- 

 neer, a grey horse, he out of a mare whose 



