140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



your fingers the good-looking horses that would come in 

 harness classes ; now you can count as many in the dealers' 

 class ; and we not onlj^ have gone ahead so fast, but pairs 

 are shown now where ten or fifteen years ago it was hard to 

 get well-matched pairs. Now you see eight or ten pairs 

 matched to one not matched. The horse dealers are just as 

 much of business men as any men. The}^ simply scour the 

 country from one end to the other. In Maine there was a 

 man named Bishop who had a wonderful heavy harness 

 horse, and it was reared in Maine, and I tell you in my 

 opinion he was the finest type of horse, and "Sundown" 

 was the name. Mr. Morgan used to go there each year, 

 and had posters put up of the type of horses he wanted, and 

 would have them come to the hotel to see if he wanted them. 

 The same was done by Mr. Bates in the west. When you 

 get the public working on a certain type, they generally 

 produce something, whether horses or soldiers. 



Question. Should you use blinders on farm horses ? 



Mr. Smith. Well, blinders in my opinion are a pretty 

 useful sort of a thing. They keep a horse a little more 

 alert, and a little more sharp. If a horse is without blinders 

 he is inclined to ffet a little bit lazv and careless. He does 

 not see as nnich, and sees only Avhat is in front of him, and 

 is not frightened by objects appearing at the side. 



I want to go back to what Dr. Twitchell said about the 

 ox-horse. I don't think I ever heard it put exactly in that 

 way. We were alwaj's taught to have a horse with some 

 ping-pong, something that would make you feel good when 

 you got in to ride. I have taken friends out to drive whose 

 fathers had horses, and they have said they did not know 

 before what a good horse meant. The same is true of 

 farmers, — any one with ox-horses. I never heard a better 

 definition than that. If we go back to ox-horses, we are 

 working backwards and bound to get backward. Now, if 

 we get energy in our horses, we are bound to get a little of 

 it ourselves. We are with our horses half the time. 



Mr. B. P. Ware (of Marblehead ) . Many of the sug- 

 gestions made l)y the lecturer are very vahiable, but I want 

 to warn my farmer friends against the attempt to breed the 



