64- THE HORSE. 



what straight and a Httle inclined to be heavy ; his back broad, 

 and his croup round, fleshy and muscuhar. His ribs are not, 

 however, so much arched, nor are they so well closed up, as his 

 general shape and build would lead one to expect. His legs and 

 feet are admirable ; the bone large and flat, and the sinews big, 

 and nervous as steel springs. His feet seein almost unconscious ' 

 of disease. His fetlocks are shaggy, his mane voluminous and 

 massive, not seldom, if untrained, falling on both sides of his 

 neck, and his tail abundant, both liaving a peculiar crimpled 

 wave, if I may so express myself, the like of which I never saw 

 in any horse whicli had not some strain of this blood. 



He cannot be called a speedy horse in his pure state ; but he 

 is emphatically a quick one, an indefatigable undaunted travel- 

 ler, with the greatest endurance, day in and day out, allowing 

 him to go at his own pace, say from six to eight miles the hour, 

 with a horse's load behind him, of any animal I have ever 

 driven. He is extremely hardy, will thrive on any thing, or al- 

 most on nothing ; is docile, though high-spirited, remarkably 

 sure-footed on the worst ground, and has fine, high action, 

 bending his knee roundly and setting his foot squarely on the 

 ground. 



As a farm-horse and ordinary former's roadster, there is no 

 honester or better animal ; and, as one to cross with other 

 breeds, whether upward by the mares to thoroughbred stallions, 

 or downward by the stallions to common country mares of other 

 breeds, he has hardly any equal. 



From the upward cross, with the English or American 

 thoroughbred on the sire's side, the Canadian has produced 

 some of the fastest trotters and the best gentleman's road and 

 saddle horses in the country ; and, 3n the other hand, the Cana- 

 dian stallion, wherever he has been introduced, as he has been 

 largely in the neighborhood of Skeneateles, and generally in 

 the western part of the State of New York, is gaining more and 

 more favor with the farmers, and is improving the style and 

 stamina of the country stock. He is said, although small him- 

 self in stature, to have the unusual quality of breeding up in size 

 with larger and loftier mares than himself, and to give the foals 

 his own vigor, pluck and iron constitution, with the frame and 

 general aspect of their dams. 



