THE DRAUGHT HORSE OF VERMONT. 53 



been created, there is, as I have observed, no record. I do not, 

 however, think it imiDossible, or even difficult to arrive at some- 

 thing not very fav from tlie facts of the matter ; if one look to 

 the sources whence he might reasonably expect such a strain to 

 be deduced, and then find that such sources are not wanting, 

 and that nearly in the proportion one would have suggested. 



In the first place, then, the size, the action, the color, the 

 comparative freedom from hair on the limbs, the straightness 

 of the longer hairs of the mane and tail, and the quickness of 

 movement, would, at once, lead one to suspect a large cross, 

 perhaps the largest of any, on the original mixed country horse, 

 of Cleveland Bay. There are, however, some points in almost 

 all these horses, whicli must be referred to some otlier foreign 

 cross than the Cleveland, not thoroughbred, and, as I have men- 

 tioned above, certainly not JSTorman or Canadian, of which these 

 animals do not exhibit any characteristic. The points to Avhich 

 I have referred, are, principally, the shortness of the back, the 

 roundness of the barrel, the closeness of the ribbing up, the 

 general punchy or pony build of the animal, and its form and 

 size, larger and more massively muscular than those of the 

 Cleveland Bay, yet displaying fully as large, if not a larger, 

 share of blood than belongs to that animal, in its unmixed 

 form. 



The prevalent colors of this breed, or family, if I may so call 

 it, also appear to point to an origin different, in part, from that 

 of the pure Cleveland Bays, which, as I have before observed, 

 lean to the light or yelloAv bay variation, while these New Eng- 

 landers tend, as decidedly, to the blood bay, if not to the brown 

 bay or pure brown. 



I^ow these latter are esjDCcially the dray-horse colors, and 

 the points whicli I have specified above are also those, in a great 

 measure, of the improved dray-horse. 



The cross of this blood in the present animal, if there be one, 

 is doubtless very remote, and whether it may have come from 

 a single mixture of the dray stallion, long since, or from some 

 half-bred imported stallion, perhaps got by a three-part tho- 

 roughbred and Clevelander from a dray mare, must, of course, 

 be doubtful. At all events, I should have little hesitation in 

 pronouncing that what I call the bay draught horse of Yermont 



