190 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



some compact, muscular, good-limbed horses, of the purest 

 pedigree, which could hardly fail of getting magnificent road- 

 sters when crossed with the largest and fleetest of the Morgan 

 mares. The half-blood sons of this cross, being trained to 

 trot, would be even Ijetter suited to become sires of fast trotters. 



Notwithstanding the undeniable excellence of the best form 

 of the Thoroughbred horse, and the great improvement in our 

 roadsters, which has resulted from the use of such stallions as 

 Messenger, Trustee, Duroc, Henry and Eclipse, it is by no 

 means certain that our present breed requires for its perfection 

 or preservation, (as some would have us believe,) continual 

 recurrence to this blood. 



Frank Forester claims that the excellence of every breed of 

 horses and of every individual horse, consists in the possession 

 of oriental blood, yet most of the best trotters have been what 

 he is pleased to call cold-blooded. The wonderful horse, 

 Dutchman, trotted three miles in seven minutes, thirty-two and 

 a half seconds, and four miles in ten minutes, fifty-one seconds, 

 which is the fastest time on record. He was purchased in a brick- 

 yard in Pennsylvania, where he was engaged in the rather slow 

 work of trampling clay, and is described as a great, coarse, ugly, 

 brown brute, with a short, hog neck, a fearful borer, going with 

 his head down in the most ungainly and disagreeable manner. 

 No body could suspect him of possessing a trace of pure blood 

 and he was thick-winded, but he could trot at a tremendous 

 rate for a greater distance than any other horse. 



Blood of the right kind is an excellent thing, but all good 

 qualities have not been given to any one breed exclusively. 



The Thoroughbred horse of England has been produced by the 

 steady prosecution and scientific management of breeding, which 

 Professor Percivall says, means " not only the procuration of 

 original stock of good description, but the continual progressive 

 cultivation of that stock in the progeny by the greatest care in 

 rearing and feeding, and by the most careful selection. On 

 these two circumstances, and particularly on the latter, a great 

 deal more depends than on the original characters or attributes 

 of the parents. By these means, we have progressed from a 

 good to a better, losing sight of no subsidiary help, ihitil we 

 have obtained a perfection in horse-flesh unknown in the whole 

 world beside." 



