20 



Now, we have this animal as the natural product of our 

 farms. I know not how it has come to pass, but it is a 

 fact that the farmer's horse in New England is peculiar to 

 himself, and is, moreover, peculiarly an American insti- 

 tution. He may he descended from the Thorough-bred, 

 for anything that can be said to the contrary, but the fur- 

 ther he is removed from that rather equivocal class of ani- 

 mals, the more truly does he become a trotter. I look 

 upon him as one result of that social and civil equality 

 which, in our own country, makes one man's time as val- 

 uable as another's, and which authorizes the farmer's boy 

 to take the road from the squire, or the parson, or the doc- 

 tor, whenever his colt can do it. Every man in this coun- 

 try who can keep a horse wants a good one, and when he 

 has got him, he wants to avail himself of his horse's pow- 

 ers, to make the distance between the mill, or the meet- 

 ing-house, and his own home as short as possible. We 

 all drive on the road, and this combined, undoubtedly, 

 with certain fortunate aptitudes of climate and soil, has 

 given New England her valuable race of trotters. 



Why should we go abroad, then, with the expectation 

 of improving what we now have ? While we have our 

 Messengers, and Blackhawks, and other families of Mor- 

 gans, so diverse in size and shape, so well fitted by form 

 and temper to every labor, and yet possessing a kind of 

 prevailing uniformity, expressed by the phrase "ahorse 

 of all work," can we hope to derive any benefit by a re- 

 sort to those specific breeds of horses which, in England, 

 are devoted each to his specialty? There is no necessity, 

 for instance, for importing a Suffolk Punch, for half-a- 

 day's search would undoubtedly provide yon with just 

 such an animal, raised on your own soil. We need not 



