HORSES. 107 



HAMPSHIRE, FRANKLIN AND HAMPDEN. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



Mucli has been written and said about the importance of 

 rearing a breed of faster horses than is now in general use by 

 our farmers and the owners of pleasure or carriage horses. No 

 doubt there is room for improvement in this direction, and so 

 long as some animals can trot a mile inside of three minutes as 

 easily as others can in double that time, then some reference 

 should be had to speed by those who make breeding a business. 

 It is useless, however, to prescribe one set of rules with the 

 expectation that it will meet the wants of all classes. The 

 demands of one class would not be that of another ; therefore 

 the breeder who had an eye alone to speed would not find a 

 purchaser in the one who needed muscle. 



The most profitable as a whole, and best adapted to the wants 

 of a majority in this valley, is the horse of all work, combining 

 so far as is possible all the good points of form, speed, muscle 

 and endurance. With men of experience and intelligence, 

 breeding is no longer a matter of uncertainty, and it is nearly 

 as easy to obtain and rear colts possessing all the desired quali- 

 ties as it is those who have only one. Size as well as form is 

 another desirable object. The most useful and the most profit- 

 able horses are those weighing about a thousand pounds. As a 

 general rule it costs more to keep a large horse than a small 

 one, and the one weighing from twelve hundred to thirteen 

 hundred pounds will not perform as much labor, when the cost 

 of keeping is considered, as the one weighing from nine hun- 

 dred to a thousand pounds. The concussion of bone and 

 muscle while travelling is greater in the large horse than in the 

 small one, and there is necessarily greater exhaustion. 



The subject of breed, or the kind of horses as a race best to 

 raise, is a question of great importance, and one upon which 

 there is much diversity of opinion. There has been a great 

 deal said about thoroughbred horses, but there are very few in 

 this country that can claim such distinction. A few breeders in 

 Kentucky and other parts of the South have been engaged in 

 raising pure-blooded horses, but these were bred mostly for the 

 turf, and not for legitimate purposes. This class date their 

 origin back to the race horses of England. 



