12 THE PERFECT HORSE. 



and efficient forces, and used by them at will as a 

 slave is directed by his master to serve or kill his guest. 

 Never can a man be a good judge of a horse so long as 

 he looks upon him as an animal of low organization, 

 composed merely of bones, muscles, fibre, and flesh, and 

 represented by these. Such a view of swine is correct ; 

 but such a view of horses is most erroneous : and yet 

 many buyers who deem themselves in every way com- 

 petent to select good horses, and plume themselves on 

 their ability to "buy close," never look farther into the 

 organization of a horse than to examine his legs, feet, 

 shoulders, quarters, and muscles, — the mere material 

 and loiver part of the animal ; while the quaUties which 

 really in fact represent the horse, and decide his com- 

 parative value, are taken for granted. 



I select the following description of the head of a 

 perfect horse from a Httle volume written by James C. L. 

 Carson, M.D., of Coleraine, Ireland, published in 1859 

 (a little book, by the way, from which many compilers 

 of books on the horse have copied about all the sense 

 there was in their works, without giving him the credit 

 of it), because I would like to bring this book into 

 notice, and because the description harmonizes, point by 

 point, with my own ideas of a perfect head. He 

 says, — 



"The head of every horse should be as small as 

 would be in keeping with the rest of his body. A 

 large, coarse head is a defect, in every person's eye ; and 

 it has no advantages to counterbalance its deformity. 



