420 AGRICULTURE AND THE HORSE. 



shoulder of lamb, between a Fearnaught loin and a 

 loin of veal, between a Lady Suffolk hind-quarter and 

 a hind-quarter of mutton : he only knew what a young- 

 looking, vigorous, strong, good-driving, bay family- 

 horse was, that measured by a rod fifteen hands and 

 two inches, and weighed on the scales ten hundred 

 and fifty pounds ; and he bought him at a price 

 which he had fixed in his mind as his horse investment 

 for this season, when the spring opened, — the sum he 

 could afford to spend in this direction. The same kind 

 of level common sense guided this man in this most dif- 

 ficult of all branches of business — the purchasing of a 

 horse — that makes a man a statesman, and not a politi- 

 cian ; a merchant, and not a speculator ; a jurist, and not 

 a pettifogger ; a long-lived orator, and not an incendiary 

 cxhorter; a sagacious general, and not a military mar- 

 tinet, — the same kind of common sense, though per- 

 haps less in degree, but none the less entitled to our 

 admiration, inasmuch as it leads men to strike the effec- 

 tive blow, and perform the effective deed, and remove 

 the entangling complications, which impracticable and 

 imaginative gentlemen are apt to weave around prac- 

 tical affairs ; that common sense, which, while strong in 

 itsolf, always receives healthy invigoration from the. 

 highest culture and the most varied experience. 



Mr. Chairman, there are a great many horses in the 

 United States ; and I am happy to say that every mem- 

 ber of this family is counted as a horse for some pur- 

 pose. By the census, I learn that there arc 7,145,370 



