" CLAYRABTA," AND " CLAYBEALE GRANT." «j 



horse from which to create new types ? If Mr. Darwin were alive, I 

 wonder if he could explain this question better than does Bible history? 

 From no other horse could these three families be produced, nor can 

 either of them produce other new, desirable, self-sustaining types. 



As I have said, the reader must now become his own teacher, and 

 if he be a deep thinker and condensed reasoner, he will grow strong in 

 his opinions. 



Again for our own country, — America ! We found wild horses 

 here called Indian ponies. Could we create anything from them? No; 

 we imported from our mother-country, and from Arabia and Egypt, 

 Persia and Turkey, as well as France and England, over fifty Arabian 

 and barb stallions. Beside these, there were brought a great many 

 English thoroughbred running-horses, close to the Arabian blood. 



This was between 1760 and 1835, since when, or from 1835 up to 

 the breaking out of the war in 1861, we had at intervals quite a number 

 more ; so that with the beginning of the war no country had such 

 uniformly good horses as America ; and yet, we as a people paid no 

 attention to their breeding. For years " two-forty down the plank" 

 was in every boy's mouth, for all our horses trotted, and the best of 

 coach-horses were plenty and cheap. 



The trotting-tracks had not been recognized as an institution to be 

 sustained and supported by fashionable wealth. Our vehicles were 

 heavy, and harness more so. The shoeing of our horses was primi- 

 tive ; and when I look at the big, coarse, heavy shoes of Old Henry 

 Clay, as compared with the delicately-finished shoe of to-day, and those 

 spikes for nails by the side of the little finished Putnam nail, I ask 

 what made our old-time horses trot so fast and endure so much with- 

 out training or condition. The reply comes, " Blood and breeding." 

 What blood? The Arabian, which had permeated the blood of most 

 of our horses in our new and then almost unextended civilization. 

 Our horses were centred in the Eastern States, where the Arabian 

 blood of Messenger was well diffused, and frequently reinforced by 

 primitive blood from the occasionally imported Arabian ; yet none of 

 these Arabian horses had been used to any extent except in New Eng- 

 land, New York State, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky ; 

 still, all were used, and " blood would tell." 



In New England they had Arabian blood direct, in their Morgan 

 horse ; also more or less Messenger descendants, so that New England 

 and New York State were famous for good horses. 



Our dreadful war began in the spring of 1861, calling for large 



