128 THE BRIDLE BITS. 



more powerful and more civilized nations with bovrs and 

 arrows and the primitive weapons of the dark ages to 

 establish a government and a nation with la^vs worthy of 

 civilized man, while we in America have grown out ,cf 

 the highest state of cultivated civilization that came over 

 and was landed on our shores by every vessel from the 

 first voyage of the *^May Flower" to the last of the 

 ^'Oregon." There is a vast difference, therefore, between 

 the difficulties and the progress of the last two thousand 

 years and the last two hundred. "We have nothing to do 

 but improve upon and sail the boat tliat England and 

 other nations built, and as we have all the material nec- 

 essary for every enterprise, and imported artizans to do 

 the work, we have nothing to do but to take their hints 

 and improve on our mother's precepts, exam^Dle and skill. 

 Let this princijDle be adopted in the breeding regions of 

 the West, and eight or ten years hence our carriages 

 will be as admirably adorned with suitable horse-flesh as 

 our tracks are now. 



THE CARRIAGE HORSE. 



The carriage horse, as represented in fignre 29, can be 

 so formed and set up by judicious breeding that there 

 would be no necessity for restraint from the bearing 

 rein, for his head is now where the bearing rein would 

 have it in its most exacting requirements ; and thus a 

 horse can be made to order to suit the harness instead of 

 the reverse. The harness is all right, but the horses are 

 not. It awaits the advent of a worthy wearer. It is the 

 ^' lunk-head " with dull eye, big belly full of hay to fill 

 out the harness, banged tail to make believe thorough- 

 bred, check rein drawn to excess to deceive the uniniti- 

 ated and affect carriage horse airs, and bis tongue hang- 

 ing out at the side of his mouth, that is entitled to our 

 sympathy — for, instead of being in front of a plow or farm 

 wagon, he is the wrong horse in the wrong place, and 



