376 AGRICULTURE AND THE HORSE. 



space above the top of the shoulder-blades with such a 

 mass of strong muscle? What has strengthened that 

 lower jaw, so that the horse and his driver may be 

 made one through the bit and rein? What has 

 dropped the points of the hips below the level of the 

 rump, where they stand usually in the thorough -bred ? 

 What has judiciously cooled the ardor, and increased 

 the patience, and enlarged the sagacity, of the thorough- 

 bred ? What has incased the untiring channels of true 

 blood in a new frame, of* proportions hitherto unknown 

 to them, until they were subjected to the influence 

 of American companions, and American wants, and 

 American institutions? Probably no single cause, but 

 many combined. The habit of driving, to which I 

 have alluded, has undoubtedly done much towards 

 bringing about this result. But this alone is not suffi- 

 cient. And I am constrained to believe that we owe 

 much of the shape and stride which distinguish our best 

 trotters to a larger or smaller infusion of Canadian 

 blood, derived from the early importations of Norman 

 horses into Canada, which have been improved in size 

 and quality by the soil and climate of their new home. 

 In very many of our good trotters this is manifest. 

 All the descendants of Henry Clay (whose sire was 

 Long-Island Black Hawk, and whose dam was '' Surry, 

 a mare of great speed from Canada"), especially the 

 get of Cassius M. Clay (a son of Henry), have the thick 

 jowl, and heavy ear, and round muscle, and thick 

 sinews, and coarse-grained foot, of the family from which 



