352 AGRICULTUTRE AND THE HORSE. 



for the general run of farmers. We sell some hay and 

 some wood, and we find small cattle and a moderate 

 horse are best for this business : there is less risk in 

 them ; and they answer just as well. But the risk of 

 the horse we never run if we can avoid it. For one, 

 I think I am afraid of horses. I never feel exactly easy 

 about them. They seem to be a very uncertain animal. 

 They see things ; they stumble ; they want a master. 

 They are adapted to all bad occasions ; are at home in 

 a muster-field just as much as in a cornfield, at a fight 

 as at a church. The truth is, I do not understand 

 horses, and want to have nothing to do with them. I 

 wish they did not exist. And as to premiums for stal- 

 lions and mares and colts, — why, I remember with pride 

 that the old agricultural society to which I belong — one 

 of the first in the country — gave no premiums for horses 

 during the first fifteen years of its history. I have 

 been told that there is one now in existence which 

 gives the smallest possible space for this uncertain and 

 unscrupulous animal. I suppose it would not do to 

 run a society without them. But then, sir," — and here 

 Mr. Jones rose to his feet, — '"^ what repose would follow 

 their expulsion from the society of those graver animals 

 which belong by right to a cattle-show ? Imagine, sir, 

 a return to those peaceful hours when horses were un- 

 known, — to the palmy days of Elisha, who was found 

 ploughing, not with horses, but with the patient oxen ; 

 to the days of Job, who revelled in oxen and asses ; 

 to the times when a horse was so mean and unworthy, 



