X 



14 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



ical structure and his disorders that they place him nearer 

 man than do those of any of the other heasts of the field. 



The history of the. horse affords us no evidence that there 

 has heen any improvement in the race since Pharaoh and his 

 hosts of horsemen and chariots were overthrown in the Red 

 Sea. The Arabs have always had the finest horses in the 

 world, and their great afiection for them has been most re- 

 markable. Among no people has the art of breeding and 

 training the horse been carried to such perfection as among 

 the wandering tribes of the desert ; and nowhere else has 

 there been such freedom from disease, unless it bo among the 

 ponies of the Western Indians. It does not, then, require in- 

 telligence nor cultivation to have good horses, or even the 

 best. And whether the horse has advanced in improvement 

 since the earlier ages, he certainly has become much more 

 subject to disease, and much more so in those countries 

 where the greatest efforts have been made for the improve- 

 ment of fine breeds. Among the horses of England and 

 France there is three times as much disease as in America, 

 and ten times more in the older States than among the wild 

 horses of the plains of Texas, or the Indian ponies. Both 

 disease and degeneracy have kept pace with the efforts of < 

 stable breeding and management. ^ 



But few persons are aware that 

 on these plains are to be found 

 some of the finest horses in the 

 world — in size and form and mo- 

 tion — some of them of the most 

 perfect symmetry and models of 

 beauty, and possessing all the va- 

 ried movements of gracefulness and 

 agility characterizing the horse 

 trained under the most careful 

 supervision, and often in a much 

 more perfect degree. 

 Said an old Texan ranger to the author, as they were 

 riding together across the great prairies, " Have y^u heard 



