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INTRODUCTION 



"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! " are the words 

 Shakespeare put in the month of the defeated Richard. This 

 has been the sentiment, if not the exact words, of many a better 

 man before and since. We believe the Psalmist was in error 

 when he said, "A horse is a vain thing for safety, and neither 

 shall he deliver any by his great strength." Both assertions have 

 been disproved again and again. 



Down through the ages the horse has been associated with man 

 in his savage or semi-savage state, as well as in his most civilized. 

 He has played a most important part as a means of transportation, 

 an engine of war, and as a beast of burden. In all of these there 

 has been interwoven with the intensely practical, a touch of the 

 romantic that has set the horse upon a pinnacle among our do- 

 mestic animals. Were we to give our fancy and pen free rein 

 we might discourse at length of his associations with man in some 

 of the most important events in the world's history. Who can 

 think of Xapoleon in war apart from his milk-w4iite charger, 

 Rams ; or disassociate Paul Revere, on his historic ride, from his 

 steed 



'^ — Flying fearless and fleet 



And the spark struck out from the steed in its flight 



Kindled the land with flame with its heat." 



Or, what thought of Marcus Whitman on his pilgrimage across 

 the continent to inform the American Congress of the value of 

 the Oregon country, does not l:ear with it the horse that carried 

 him over mountains and through deserts? 



Time and space would not avail to tell of McCormack riding 

 on horseback from Chicag£> to Palmyra, IST. Y., seeking aid to 

 finance his proposed reaper; of Sheridan at Winchester; as well as 

 a host of other instances where man's best efforts, without the aid 

 of the horse, would be as water spilled upon the groimd. 



Among the kingdoms in which the horse has been a most im- 

 portant subject, we must not forget the farm. Here, as time and 



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