REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 155 



should be calculated for great ulterior views, not simply to 

 gratify a host of people with the excitements of a race course. 



The stand point at which the institution of horse shows 

 should be regarded is, not the temporary pleasure which they 

 may afford to those who visit them, but their public utility; and 

 in the further remarks which we have to offer, we propose to 

 keep this steadily in view. The result of this, and a succession 

 of splendid displays like this, should show from year to year a 

 marked improvement in the breed of horses for every purpose 

 to which that noble animal is subservient to man. 



It is much to be regretted that more attention has not been 

 paid to raising a class of working horses, those especially 

 best adapted for the purposes of draft, and truly designated, 

 " the horse of all work." 



The profit of breeding horses for speed is a very doubtful one. 

 But there is no doubt tliat if more care were used by our 

 farmers in breeding only from good sized mares with horses of 

 good size and bone, and well proportioned for work, it would 

 be reasonably remunerative. Horses of this description can 

 be bred with certainty. They may be good for the carriage, 

 they may prove fast ; but if deficient in speed and style, tliey 

 have, if of good size, a high value as horses for draft. A well 

 made, stout animal, fit for a tpam horse in the city of Boston, will 

 fetcli from two to three hundred dollars at four years old ; a 

 greater price than the average of all the trotting horses in the 

 country at the same age. 



In England, where the breeding of all classes of horses is 

 equally attended to, the working horse, such as the Clydesdale 

 horse, the Cleveland Bay and the Suffolk Punch, used for car- 

 riage, and farming, and training purposes, are the only ones 

 which show an agricultural profit in raising. The horses for 

 the turf are bred principally by those who possess large landed 

 interests, and who continue the practice as much from a sense 

 of duty as from the individual pleasure derived from it, but 

 without any realization or expectation of profit. Hence it is that 

 fast horses in England do not appear on the premium lists of 

 any agricultural show in England. The race course is their 

 arena, and they mar, more often than they make, the fortunes of 

 their owners. 



