SPEED OF HOESES. 57 



and populous as ours, is still sufficient to place us in the front 

 rank as compared with other wool-producing countries. And 

 while the quantity has increased, the quality has been greatly 

 improved since the modern interest in breeding began. At 

 the World's Fair in London, in 1851, the fleece that com- 

 manded the highest prize for the fineness and beauty of staple, 

 in a free competition with Spain, Saxony, Silesia, and other 

 parts of Germany, was grown on the green pastures of Ten- 

 nessee, while lit the International Exhibition at Hamburg, in 

 1863, the Vermont merinos carried off the prizes. 



AMERICAN HORSES. 



Whether the horse in general has actually undergone any 

 improvement or not may admit of some question, but it is 

 certain that the horses of this country have been greatly im- 

 proved within the present century. The chief means of car- 

 rying on our early inland commerce, including a large amount 

 of heavy teaming and transportation, was the horse. The 

 public roads were bad, worse even than they are at the pres- 

 ent day, and over these the freight of the country, whatever 

 it was, had to be moved in Avagons made to be capable of the 

 hardest usage. The modern light carriage would have been 

 comparatively useless in a new countr}^ and over such roads, 

 while a speed now seen every day would have been quite un- 

 safe. The mail contracts, even over a very large part of the 

 country, when the post system was instituted, were based on 

 a speed below four and five miles per hour. But there were 

 no mails previous to 1790 ; and in 1791, the first year of the 

 mail service, there were but eighty-nine post-oflices in the 

 whole country, and less than two thousand miles of post- 

 roads, and on these nine-tenths of the mail-service was done 

 on horseback, the stage service being very small. 



A few stage routes had been established at an earlier date. 

 The first, and at that time the only, stage wagon in America is 

 said to have left Boston for Portsmouth in 1661. There were 

 then but six stage coaches in all England. The first line of 

 stages between Boston and New York was started in 1732, a 

 coach leaving each city once a month, and fourteen days being 

 required to complete the journey. A regular stage line be- 

 tween Boston and Gloucester, Mass., was established in 1788, 



