114 THE HORSE. 



Messenger, third-part horse, I should expect to get an animal 

 improved above the dam, but not so much improved as I 

 should, had she been put to a properly selected animal of undis- 

 puted blood. 



In a word, unless I were intending to breed dray-horses, 

 cart-horses, or punches, I would never put a mare to a halt-bred 

 sire at all ; and even of these, excej^ting the dray-horse — which 

 in reality is an animal for ostentation and show, sanctioned by 

 usage among brewers and distillers in England, not for utility — 

 I am satisfied, that they would be bettered by a cross of blood. 



The original Canadians were, I have no doubt, of pure Nor- 

 man and Breton descent ; but, since the Canadas have been 

 under British rule, they, too, have been mixed and improved 

 largely by the introduction of a pure strain ; so that the animals, 

 which in late years pass here under the name of Canadians, 

 such as Moscow, Lady Moscow, and many others of name, are 

 Canadians only by title, and differ only from other American 

 roadsters in the fact, that they have, it is probable, for the most 

 part only two crosses, of tlie Norman and pure English blood, 

 while the ordinary road-horse of the United States is perhaps 

 a combination of several English distinct families, with French, 

 Spanish and Flemish crosses, beside a strain of thorough blood. 



Of trptters it is now certain that there is no distinctive breed, 

 or family, or mode of breeding. The power, the style, the ac- 

 tion, the mode of going are the things ; and it is most probable 

 that the speed and tlie endurance both of weight and distance 

 depend, more or less, on the greater or inferior degree of blood 

 in the animal. 



There is no doubt whatever in my own mind, that allowing 

 such men as Hiram Woodruff, George' Spicer, and others of the 

 same kidney, to select such horses as they should pick for shape, 

 bone, action, movement and blood, out of tlie best hunting sta- 

 bles in England, and to train and drive them themselves, after 

 their own fashion, they would find an equal, or even larger, pro- 

 portion of animals — owing to their superiority in blood — capa- 

 ble of making as good time as has been made here. It is to the 

 fact that no favor has been ever attached to trotting, either as 

 a national sport, or as an amusement of the wealthier classes — to 

 the fact that all the best and most promising animals, which 



