352 APPENDIX. 



have left no desideratum that could be supplied by either the moose 

 or the c&riboo. There are, however, several undoubted instances of* 

 the applicability of the moose to draught. A few years since a 

 settler on the Guysboro' road, named Carr, possessed a two-year old 

 bull moose, which was perfectly tractable in harness. For a wager, 

 he has been known to overtake and quickly distance the fastest 

 trotting horse on the road, drawing his master in a sleigh, the 

 guiding reins being fastened to a muzzle bound round the animal's 

 nose. Another instance was that of a very large moose kept by a 

 doctor in Cape Breton, which he would invariably employ in pre- 

 ference to his horse when wishing to make a distant visit to a 

 patient, and in the shortest time. It is very certain that in its 

 youth the moose is one of the most tractable of animals ; but it is 

 in the rutting season of the third year that the males first become 

 unmanageable and dangerous.* 



A point, however, on which I would engage attention, is not the 

 domestication of either of these animals in the state in which the 

 ordinary domesticated animals are associated with us, but a possible 

 state of semi-domestication, by which the moose might be caused to 

 multiply on uncleared land, and regularly bred, fattened, and turned 

 to profit without the smallest cost to the owner, except the expense 

 of maintaining his enclosures in an efiicient state of security. My 

 attention was first drawn to this by reading an account of the 

 successful breeding of the American elk (C. wapiti) by an American 

 gentleman — a Mr. Stratton, of New York State. I quote from a 

 letter dated January 12, 1859 : — 



" My desire to keep and breed them, without their becoming a tax 

 upon me, led to diligent inquiry in relation to what had been done 

 in the way of their domestication. I procured, as far as possible, 

 every paper, book, and document, which could give any light upon 

 the subject. I wrote to every part of the country whence any infor- 

 mation could be obtained, and opened a correspondence with those 

 who had undertaken such an enterprise. The result of my efforts 

 was simply this : nearly every one who had owned an elk was a 

 gentleman amateur, and had left the care and direction to servants ; 

 the bucks, not having been castrated at the proper age, had 

 become unmanageable ; and when the novelty of the attempt was 

 over, the domestication in most cases was abandoned. But from my 



* Formerly the European elk was used in Sweden to draw sledges, but its 

 use for this purpose was finally prohibited by government, as criminals used 

 it as a means of escape. 



