6(3 THE HORSE. 



It was their wonderful sure-footedness, sagacity, and docility, 

 however, which most delighted me. They were driven witlioiit 

 blinkers or bearing reins, and where, as was often the case, 

 bridges seemed doubtful, the bottom of miry fords suspicious of 

 quagmires, or the road otherwise dangerous, they would put 

 down their heads to examine, try the difficulty with their feet, 

 and, when satisfied, would get through or over places, which 

 seemed utterly impracticable. 



In short, I became perfectly in love with them ; and, as the 

 price asked for them was fabuk)usly small — considerably, if I re- 

 collect aright, under fifty doUars for the pair — I should certainly 

 have bought them, had there been any way of getting them 

 down from what was then almost a wilderness, tliough it is now 

 the very finest part of the province. 



Whence this ponj- breed of Canadians has arisen, 1 am un- 

 able to say ; but I believe it to be almost entirely peculiar to 

 the Indian tribes, wherefore I am inclined to think it may have 

 been produced by the dwarfing process, which will arise from 

 hardsliip and privation endured generation after generation, 

 particularly by the young animals and the mares while heavy 

 in foal. 



These animals had, I can say almost positively, no recent 

 cross of the Spanish horse ; but I have seen, since that time, 

 ponies approaching nearly to the same type, which showed an 

 evident cross of the mustang ; and I have seen animals called 

 mustangs, in which I was convinced that there was Canadian 

 blood. 



With this, I take my leave of what I consider the last of the 

 families of the horse, now existing, peculiar to America ; here- 

 after, I shall proceed to give some statistics and general infor- 

 mation, for which I am indebted to my friend Col. Harris of the 

 Ohio Cultivator, and to Messrs. A. Y. Moore and Joshua Clem- 

 ents of Michigan, and to Mr. J. H. Wallace of Muscatine, 

 Iowa, with various friends and correspondents of these gentle- 

 men, concerning the breeds of horses, and the general condition 

 of the horse interest, in the West. In none, however, of those 

 newly settled, but vastly thriving agricultural States, is there 

 any thing that can, with the least propriety, be claimed as a dis- 

 tinctive tamily of the horse. 



