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20 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



should be to study this great law of our physical being, and 

 also in the brute creation, and to labor for the improvement 

 of the different races, not the formation of new ones. Such 

 will be our purpose in the future pages of this work. 



It is not our design to enlarge upon these topics in this 

 very brief outline of history, but in their appropriate chap- 

 ters they will be more fully presented. It is with the horse 

 as we find him in America that we have to do in this work. 

 !N"ot the general history of his races, pedigrees, and perform- 

 ances, but the history of his diseases, their causes and cures, 

 and rational and generous rules for his treatment and gen- 

 eral improvement. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES KEPT IN VIEW IN THIS WORK. 



Certain leading principles, already indicated in this chap- 

 ter, have been constantly kept in view in the preparation of 

 this work. An epitome of these will probably prove of ma- 

 terial assistance to many readers, and, as it will occupy but 

 little space, is here introduced : 



1. The horse is naturally a wild animal, his condition of 

 domestication being really one of slavery. 



2. His wild or native state is that in which he is the most 

 free and happy, and that in which he lives the longest and 

 attains the most perfect development of his natural powers. 



3. Like the human family, the species was originally di- ' 

 vided into distinct races, which races Providence designed 

 should be kept separate forever. 



4. In their wild state, the different races, dispersing in 

 droves, do not mingle together, and if they were left to follow 

 the instincts of nature, intermixture would never occur. 



5. The horse is not naturally a diseased animal. He is 

 subject to extremely few hereditary disorders, or, perhaps, to 

 none ; but indiscriminate commingling of blood has fearfully 

 multiplied the diseases to which he is subject, and occasioned 

 deplorable degeneracy. 



6. Improper treatment and abuse at the hands of man 



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