CHAPTER I. 



HISTORY, BREEDS AITO VARIETIES OF HORSES IN THE 



ITNITED STATES, 



ORIGIN AND VALUE OF THE HORSE. 



The history of the Horse, intimately interwoven as it is with man, 

 can hardly fail to interest the most careless student. From the 

 earliest ages, he has been man's faithful ally and willing shive* 

 In war, he not only moves all the machinery of the field and 

 camp, but shares with his rider, all the fatigue and danger of the 

 battle. In peace, how various and invaluable are his services. 

 Every branch of industry owes much to his patient toil. He 

 plows the soil, sows the seed, reaps the harvest, and transports it 

 to market. He has been admired, cherished and loved equally 

 by the most enlightened and most barbarous races of man, and is 

 almost invariably considered the most useful and manageable of 

 all our domestic animals. He was domesticated in the days of 

 Mores, and the earliest record traces him to Egypt, whence he 

 gradually found his way to the various Egyptian Provinces. 



The wild horses of South America, are supposed to have been 

 descended from animals left in the country by early Spanish ad- 

 venturers. E'ossils have laiely been discovered in the south which 



