HORSES. 63 



to which it is here necessarily exposed, it is difficult to say ; but a 

 flat, vulgar-looking one is decidedly my own preference. It gene- 

 rally possesses less sensibility and susceptibility of inflamniation, 

 and the horn is weaker and less able to contract than that of a foot 

 of a more beautiful and original formation. There are many rea- 

 sons why she should have a wide chest. If she has not, slit will 

 neither have a good belly for the young horse to grow in, constitu- 

 tion to nourish him before his foaling, nor milk enough for him 

 after he is foaled ; and she will be in danger of transmitting to him 

 a figure, which he is more apt to take from his dam than his sire, 

 and which it is very important in this climate he should not have. 

 Many narrow-chested horses make it up in depth, and possess ex- 

 traordinary powers in every way ; but they are generally light in 

 the flank, and high on the leg; hectic in their constitutions, and 

 variable in their spirits : very superior walkers and trotlers ; but 

 they will bear neither east winds nor daily labor. The mare's 

 color is of little consequence : excepting that it should be recol- 

 lected, that chesnuts, or, as we call them, sorrels, particularly light 

 ones, who have always a good deal of white, are far more liable 

 than other horses to the sympathetic diseases of the lungs and skin. 

 The number of broken-winded chesnuts in Massachusetts, is four 

 times that of any other one color. As 1 am acquainted with but 

 three horses in Massachusetts fit to breed from, there is not much 

 to be said about the sire. A vevy celebrated English horse is ex- 

 pected here in the spring; and I believe in Vermont there are two 

 covering, of unexceptionable pedigrees. Cock of the Rock, is a 

 good little bay horse — got by Eclipse's sire, Duroc ; dam, own 

 sister (called here full sister) to Eclipse's dam, by Messenger; 

 grandam, bred by Lord Grosvenor, by PotSo's, out of a Gimcrack 

 mare. Trouble is also by Duroc ; dam, by Hickory, out of Eclipse's 

 dam. — A horse, here, is said to be got out of, for by, another horse ; 

 a most ridiculous corruption. 



The next thing is to have the mare's gestation proceed under fa- 

 vorable circumstances, and to have her foal at the right time of the 

 year. On this there is little to be said : a mare is perfectly fit for 

 ordinary labor during most of her gestation, and is all the better 

 for it ; and the proper time for foaling, in this climate, is the first 

 of June. Even in England, where the forwardness of a thorough- 

 bred horse is a matter of extreme pecuniary importance ; he being 

 often matched, to run at two, before he is foaled, and all foaled in 

 the same year carry the same weights ; their most distinguished 

 breeders, who have examined and scrutinized the subject, are of 

 opiiiion, that a January colt will not be much forwarder than a 

 June one ; that the first will lose more by the exposure soon after 

 his foaling, than he will have gained by having had more time to 

 grow. 



The third, and by far the most important thing of all, is the 

 horse's treatment from the time he is foaled till he is full grown. 

 One of the most celebrated sportsmen of modern times, has de- 

 clared his opinion, that it is in the power of art to make a superior 



