ANNUAL FARM INCOME. 59 



tion to the conformation which consists with this character, 

 the fastest trotting-horses in the world are to be fonnd in the 

 United States." 



But the draujjht-horse has not been neg-lected. The Con- 

 estoga, a large and heavy breed of horses, used mostly for 

 the purposes of slow work in the drays of our large towns 

 and cities, is extensively raised in some parts of the Middle 

 States, while the Percheron has more recently been intro- 

 duced and bred in some parts of the West. 



The number of horses in this country, according to the 

 last census, was 8,690,219, of which 7,142,849 were on 

 farms, and the balance found in cities and large towns. This 

 was a gain of more than a million in ten years, for, in 1860, 

 the total number w^as reported as 7,434,688, of which 6,249,- 

 174 were upon farms. The number on farms in 1850 was 

 4,336,719, there having been no effort made to ascertain the 

 number not kept on farms. 



It will thus be seen that the capital invested in horses con- 

 stitutes a large item in our national wealth ; and to this should 

 be added more than a million of mules and asses, the number 

 returned in the census of 1870 'eing 1,125,415. The 

 extent of our dependence upon this class of stock was never 

 more completely realized than during the prevalence of the 

 epizootic of last year, when the infinitely varied transactions 

 of the country, social, manufacturing and commercial, were 

 so nearly brought to a stand-still for the want of the services 

 of the horse. 



LIGHT OF INTELLIGENCE. 



This brief sketch of the rise and growth of the great 

 agricultural interests of the country, involving such vast 

 amounts of capital, giving employment and bread to myriads 

 of men, and producing annually the incredible income of 

 more tlian $2,447,538,658, would be incomplete without an 

 allusion to the increase of intelligence, and the part which 

 science has taken in bringing about such magnificent results. 



I have already referred to the early attempts at associated 

 efibrt and the growth of agricultural societies. Few and 

 feeble enough at first, and slow in the growth of their influ- 

 ence among the people, they have now become a powerful aid 



