358 AGRICULTURE AND THE HORSE. 



I have alluded, a thoroughly good academical educa- 

 tion, a stalwart frame, a sound mind in a sound body, 

 and a fresh and vigorous spirit, which led him along 

 the agricultural path of his ancestors, rather than along 

 their commercial or political or legal or theological 

 highways. Why his father was poor, belonging as he did 

 to such a thrifty race, nobody seemed to know. There 

 will be such in every family. He owned a farm some- 

 where, — an unrecorded farm, which no committee on 

 farms had ever visited, and which had faded and faded 

 under the touch of negligent cultivation, until every 

 thing about it — people, buildings, animals, and crops 

 — had a languid and sickly air. This farm Mr. Osgood 

 left in early life ; and we are told that he left it in early 

 spring, on foot, driving his few sheep and a cow or two 

 before him over the deep and heavy roads of that season, 

 travelling with less fiitigue than his animals, and stop- 

 ping at last for his future home in one of the remote, 

 verdant valleys of Vermont. In this home he had 

 prospered. By the exercise of good judgment in the 

 breeding of his flocks, and by the application of rules 

 which keen observation taught him, in the absence of 

 scientific laws, he improved the quality of his sheep, 

 until they became the standard, and gave him a reputa- 

 tion with the Bakewells and Collings of the Old World. 

 His cattle ranked with the best ; and, in his mind, the 

 best were models of symmetry, thrift, and quality. The 

 highest type of the American horse could be found on 

 his farm, — an animal as patient as he was courageous. 



