280 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
grow on the bushes in our neighborhood. I drew 
a line at these things, however, and decided that 
they should not swell the farm account. Thus 
I keep from the reader’s eye some of the foolish- 
ness of a doting parent who has always been as 
warm wax in the hands of his, nearly always, 
reasonable children. 
In my stable were two Kentucky-bred saddlers 
of much more than average quality, for they had 
strains of warm blood in their veins. There is 
no question nowadays as to the value of warm 
blood in either riding or driving horses. It gives — 
ability, endurance, courage, and docility beyond 
expectation. One-sixteenth thorough blood will, 
in many animals, dominate the fifteen-sixteenths 
of cold blood, and prove its virtue by unusual 
endurance, stamina, and wearing capacity. 
The blue-grass region of Kentucky has furnished 
some of the finest horses in the world, and I have 
owned several which gave grand service until 
they were eighteen or twenty years old. An 
honest horseman at Paris, Kentucky, has sold 
me a dozen or more, and I was willing to trust 
his judgment for a saddler for Jane. My request 
to him was for a light-built horse; weight, one 
thousand pounds; game and spirited, but safe 
for a woman, and one broken to jump. Every- 
thing else, including price, was left to him. 
In good time Jane’s horse came, and we were 
well pleased with it, as indeed we ought to have 
been. My Paris man wrote: “I send a bay 
