58 THE HORSE. 



in drawing the canal-boats down the railroad track in Market 

 street, Philadelphia, little if at all inferior to the dray-horses of 

 the best breweries and distilleries in London ; many of them 

 coming up, I should say, fully to the standard of seventeen or 

 seventeen and a half hands in height. 



In color, too, they follow the dray-horses ; being more often 

 blood-bays, browns, and dapple-grays, than, I think, of any 

 other shade. The bays and browns, moreover, are frequently 

 dappled also on their quarters, which is decidedly a dray-hoi'se 

 characteristic and beauty ; while it is, in some degree, a deroga- 

 tion to a horse pretending to much blood. 



Tliis peculiarity is often observable also in the larger of the 

 heavy Yermont draught-horses, and I believe it is not unknown 

 in the light and speedy Morgans. 



They have the lofty crests, shaggy volumes of mane and tail, 

 round buttocks, hairy fetlocks and great round feet of the dray- 

 horse. But they are, I should say, longer in the back, finer in 

 the shoulder, looser in the loin, and, perhaps, flatter in the side, 

 than their English antitypes. 



They do not run to the unwieldy superfluity of flesh, for 

 which the dray-horse is unfortunately famous ; they have a 

 lighter and livelier carriage, a better step and action, and are, 

 in all respects, a better traveller, more active, generally useful 

 and superior style of animal. 



They were, for many years, before railroads took a part of 

 the work off their broad and honest backs, the great carriers of 

 produce and provision from the interior of Pennsylvania to the 

 seaboard or the market ; and the vast white-topped wagons, 

 drawn by superb teams of the stately Conestogas, were a dis- 

 tinctive feature in the landscape of the great agricultural State. 

 The lighter horses of this breed were the general farm-horses 

 of the country, and no one, who is familiar with the agricul- 

 tural regions of that tine State, can fail to observe that the 

 farm-horses, generally, whether at the plough or on the road, 

 are of considerably more bulk and bone than those of ]^ew 

 York, Xew Jersey, or the Western countr3^ 



It is probable, though I am not qualified to say how far, that 

 the heavy draught of the mineral Avealth of the State, may, in a 

 measure, foster the use of a larger horse, the mule being, at 



