CANADIANS. 47 



nearly to ttie knee, and of their fetlocks. In height the 

 Canadian rarely exceeds fifteen hands, and in fact seldom 

 attains to that standard ; from fourteen to fourteen hands 

 and a half being their usual size. They are not generally 

 speedy, even at ordinary road speed ; still less often are 

 they fleet, or what would be called /as^; though there are 

 exceptions, as for instance the celebrated trotting stallion 

 St. Lawrence, who has gone fast among fast horses, and 

 has been so long on the trotting turf as to show that he 

 possesses in a high degree the hardy endurance of his race. 

 Their best rate of going, for fair, ordinary travellers, — not 

 select specimens, — does not, perhaps, exceed six or seven 

 miles the hour ; but at whatever rate they can go at all, at 

 that rate they can go before or under a heavy load, and 

 for a long, continuous distance. Many Canadians will do 

 fifty miles a day for several successive clays ; and not a 

 few can be found which will accomplish sixty, seventy, 

 eighty, and even ninety, for one day ; and the lesser rates 

 for a proportionate length of time. 



It seems remarkable that such should be the case, but 

 wo are strongly disposed to believe that, even in these 

 days of horse improvement, horse fiiirs and agricultural 

 progress, no systematical attempts have ever been made 

 to improve the Canadians themselves in their pure form ; 

 although many have been made, with great success, to 

 create improved crosses by the intermixture of them with 

 other races. No race, probably, is more susceptible of 

 direct improvement than this ; and, as their excellence is 

 universally acknowledged, both as the small poor farmer's 

 working and draught horse, for which they are adapted 

 above all American breeds, and as brood mares, from 

 which to raise a highly improved and useful general 

 working roadster, by breeding them to thorough-breds, 



