EXPERIENCE VERSUS SURMISE. 105 



horses, mostly saddle horsos ; I have lived in new countries, where 

 the Indians were more numerous than the white people. With them 

 and the early settlers, the pacer was the saddle horse par excellence. 

 I have taught many of them that gait, ponies as well as horses. I 

 have some now, and it is an easy thing to teach them the pacing 

 gait, and have them go at both gaits. Whoever has lived, as I have, 

 in such localities, knows that a good pacer is valued above all others 

 for saddle purposes, and that a pony or half-bred pony which was a 

 trotter can be readily taught the other gait, and that once they have 

 acquired it they grow into that form and reproduce it in their own off- 

 spring, and further, that as carriages come into use, all such horses 

 when used in harness adopt the trotting gait and yet adhere to the 

 pace when under the saddle, until long use at either has confirmed the 

 one and lost the other. 



In East Tennessee and Virginia the people all ride in the saddle, 

 tnale and female; their horses usually show both gaits, and I have 

 found in East Tennessee the most of the stock are called Sir Charles, 

 and are from stallions that trace back to Sir Charles, son of Sir Archy. 

 Such is the origin of many of the highly bred pacers, some are of 

 •Canadian blood beyond doubt, but the origin of the pacing habit in 

 either case was the same, a matter of no great mystery. 



The Canadian horses belong to a stock that have a clear and unmis- 

 takable origin, and the dim thread of history or tradition which has 

 followed them agrees perfectly with what we know of the aetual 

 influences which have operated upon them. But it is a fact well known 

 to all who are acquainted with the genuine Canadians that they em- 

 brace both pacers and trotters. They have pacers among them, as 

 there are in all countries which are similarly situated, but there is 

 ■ abundant reason to believe that, pacers or trotters, they have descended 

 from the same original stock. 



The principle and the reason of the adaptation of the paoer to the 

 trotting gait I have already explained. By experience and practice, 

 by use and employment, he has acquired a physical conformation and 

 a. psychological organism that adapts and inclines him to go at a way 

 that is the farthest removed from the gallop — he takes to either the 

 pace or the trot in preference to the running gait. 



