122 AGRICULTURE. 



PART V. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



HORSES. 



ORIGIN OF HORSES These animals are not natives of 

 America. The Indians had no horses before the white-man 

 came they went afoot or by canoe. The wild horses of 

 America are the offspring of escaped animals. Geologists 

 have found traces of small animals, supposed to be the ances- 

 tors of the horse, in some parts of America, but these had all 

 disappeared long before Europeans arrived four centuries ago. 

 Horses, as we know them, were originally used in warfare. At 

 present we have many kinds of horses, but all have doubtless 

 come from the same stock or kind. When the wild animal 

 was first tamed or domesticated, we do not know. Climate 

 and food, which varied in different countries, and the uses to 

 which horses were put, gradually produced some changes in form 

 and appearance. Animals that showed the qualities desired 

 such as size, color, form, strength, and fleetness were care- 

 fully treated, and thus there were developed in different 

 countries horses of different breeds, some desired horses for 

 heavy work, animals of heavy body, stout limbs, and strong 

 muscles. Others desired horses for speed, animals of lighter 

 frame, smaller bone, and sound lungs. 



KINDS OF HORSES. Two classes of horses have resulted. 

 We shall mention here only four breeds of each class. These 

 have become fixed or definite in their characteristics. The 



