AGRICULTURE AND THE HORSE. 397 



humanize him entirely. Meet him half way. Let him 

 understand that there is as much horse in you as you 

 expect there will be man in him. Let your intercourse 

 with him be calm and good-natured, but prompt, ener- 

 getic, decided, with a sort of careless firmness, colored 

 with tenderness and youthful activity. 



A colt should neither be petted to death, nor con- 

 quered and subdued to death. He should be familiar- 

 ized with the harness when so young, that he may 

 imagine the straps to be a part of himself. He should 

 never knoAV what it is to be '^broken." He should 

 find himself engaged in business, he hardly knows how; 

 and he should be gradually introduced to his work with 

 an unruffled temper, and an acquiescent but unsubdued 

 spirit. When you conquer a young horse, you can 

 never tell where the conquest is going to end. I re- 

 member well the effect of a pulley-rein ingeniously 

 rigged by means of the water-hook, and a ring-bit, and 

 a lengthened line, upon a wiry and spirited colt which 

 I got many years ago in the State of Maine. He sud- 

 denly took it into his head to pull ; and, as usual with in- 

 experts, I pulled in turn. He was stronger than I, and 

 could last longer; and so he could out-pull me in 

 a ten-mile drive. I fixed my pulley upon him. Every 

 half-inch which I secured, I could retain. It was an 

 uneven fight for him. Two or three trials discouraged 

 him. He gave up pulling, and was never a horse 

 thereafter. He would not, under any circumstances, 

 take the bit ; but he would, under all circumstances, 



