302 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



City, one of the chief objects was to raise horses that should 

 be good coach and carriage horses, to supply the demands 

 for large horses, coupe horses, in the city of New York ; 

 hence we selected a stallion upwards of seventeen hands high. 

 He now weighs, at four years of age, sixteen or seventeen 

 hundred pounds. In order to make an economical team on 

 the farm, there was purchased with him a seven-year old 

 mare that now weighs sixteen or eighteen hundred pounds. 

 Now that mare and stallion (she being almost seventeen 

 hands high) make a farm team, and work together habit- 

 ually just as quietly as a team of geldings, and better and 

 more quietly than a team of mares, and she, being with foal 

 most of the time, there are but one or two months, at the 

 outside, in the year when there is any diiBculty in working 

 them together. I might mention three or four of the large 

 firms in New York who are now working teams in the streets 

 of that cit}^ composed of these animals ; sometimes three 

 mares and a stallion, sometimes three stallions and a mare, 

 and sometimes a pair of mares and a pair of stallions, and 

 no difficulty results. Of course they have to take the maies 

 out at certain seasons. 



Our next pair of mares were of medium size, three years 

 old, neither having had a colt at that time, and these range 

 from twelve hundred to thirteen hundred pounds. I never 

 have handled a more satisfactory pair of working horses in 

 every way. They have been used as a regular farm team for 

 fifteen months ; on the road they are as light and active as any 

 ordinary pair of working horses. A very usual trip for us 

 is between eight and eight and a half miles, returning with 

 a load of about two tons, and they make that trip, going 

 empty and returning loaded, in between three hours and a 

 quarter and three hours and three-quarters, averaging 

 three hours and a half. They are able to walk, with an 

 empty wagon, very close to four and a half, perhaps five 

 miles an hour. The only trouble about them is the dan- 

 ger of their being too fat for breeding. They are like an 

 Essex pig ; it is astonishing how fat they will keep without 

 anything to eat. All through the summer seasons, with 

 rations as low as I feel it safe, they keep altogether too 

 fat. The ration now, during the winter, when they are on 



