188 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the Museum of Natural History, at the State House in Boston. 

 He was a horse of ahnost perfect form for a roadster, compact, 

 symmetrical and muscular, and possessed of most beautiful 

 head, neck, and limbs. He was active, elegant, spirited, and 

 pleasant, and marked his offspring with his own peculiar 

 excellencies and characteristics, even to color, more decidedly 

 perhaps, than any other American horse. Although the mares 

 covered by him were, as a general rule, the best in the country, 

 yet liis stock was so universally superior, that his owner used 

 to say that Black Hawk wo\ild get a good colt out of any 

 thing. His numerous and justly esteemed descendants consti- 

 tute the best breed of roadsters ever known, combining the 

 intelligence, courage, elegance, life and endurance of the Tlior- 

 oughbred horse, with sufficient bone and substance, and the 

 finest possible trotting action.* 



Ethan Allen, one of the most beautiful, fastest, and best 

 gaited trotting stallions in the world, was got by Black Hawk 

 out of a Messenger mare. 



At the fair in St. Louis, in 1859, five out of the six best 

 roadster stallions on exhibition, were Black Hawks, and the 

 prizes of .!i^l,000 in 1859, and of ^1,500 in 1860, for the best 

 stallion of this class, were each awarded to a son of Black 

 Hawk. More than one hundred horses of this breed were 

 entered at the show in Springfield, in 1860, and nearly one-half 

 of all the successful competitors were Black Hawks. 



Nearly one-fifth of all the stallions described in " Linsley's 

 History of the Morgan Horse," are sons of Black Hawk, and 

 fine stallions of this breed are uot only numerous, but command 

 higher prices than any others in the country. 



Of the Woodbury Morgans, perhaps the best samples are 

 Gifford and his descendants, particularly the Hale Horse, or 

 Green Mountain, 2d, owned for many years by Silas Hale, 

 of Royalston, Mass. 



These horses have all the fire and action and sometimes the 

 perverse disposition, as well as the round, smooth, compact 



* Since the earlier sheets of this report went to press, and on further inves- 

 tigation of tlie subject, we are satisfied that the better opinion is that Black 

 Hawk was sired by Paddy, a very superior stallion kept, at the time, in the 

 same stable, and that there is little or no i)robability that he had any Morgan 

 blood in him. 



