THE NORMAN HORSE. 4T 



animals of the last ceuturj, almost as far as pure science or 

 mechanism has advanced. 



And I should as soon think of regretting the progress of 

 mechanism, of naval architecture, of gunnery, of the arts, or 

 of pure science, as I should of deploring the dying out of the 

 obsolete races of cart-horses, of old English roadsters, and of 

 those equine elephants who wore as many bushels of hair at 

 their heels as they could move tons of coal or pig-iron at a dead 

 pull, and were, at the same time, incapable of going three miles 

 in an hour, with a feather on their backs or behind them, to 

 save their own or their owners' lives. 



In the United States and British America, again, we shall 

 find that this process of absorption or abolition of all the old 

 special breeds, and of the amalgamation of all into one general 

 race, which may fairly be termed specially " American," pos- 

 sessing a very large admixture of thoroughblood, has gone on 

 far more rapidly than in England — the rather that, with the one 

 solitary exception of the Norman horse in Canada, no special 

 breeds have ever taken root as such, or been bred, or even 

 attempted to be bred, in their purity, in any part of America. 



In Canada East, the Norman horse, imported by the early 

 settlers, was bred for many generations entirely unmixed ; and, 

 as the general agricultural horse of that province, exists so yet, 

 stunted somewhat in size, by the cold climate and the rough 

 usage to which he has been subjected for centuries, but in no- 

 wise degenerated, for he possesses all the honesty, courage, en- 

 durance, hardihood, soundness of constitution, and characteristic 

 excellence of feet and legs of his progenitor. 



Tliroughout both the provinces he may be regarded as the 

 basis of the general horse, improved as a working animal by 

 crosses of English half-bred sires ; and as a roadster, carriage- 

 horse, or higher class riding or driving horse, by an infusion of 

 English thorough blood. 



All these latter types are admirable animals, and it is from 

 the latter admixture that have sprung many of the most cele- 

 brated trotting horses, which, originally of Canadian descent, 

 have found their way into the New England States and New 

 York, and there won their laurels as Amei-ican trotters. 



Still it is not to be denied that there are, in different sections 



