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NEW ENGL.AND FARMEM. 



Published by John B. Kcssbi-i., at ^o. 53 J^Torth Market Street, (over the Agricultural Warehouse), — Tkomas G. Pessendew, Editor. 



VOL. VI. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, JANUARY H, 1828. 



No. 25. 



AGR I CULT URE. 



FOR THE NEW iLsil-ASD KABMEK. 



HORSES. 



Sir There is no branch of rural economy more 



iieglectod in Massachusetts than horses. VVhy 

 this shoulii be the case I am ignorant ; a colt can 

 be bred nearly as cheaply as a steer ; and is 

 worth much more money when he is grown. — 

 VViiat a farmer can find to read upon this subject, 

 if he desires it, must mislead him ; most of it be- 

 ing taken from lun^; exploded English treatises, 

 and few men are to be found here, whose ac- 

 quaintance with the subject is not exceedingly 

 superficial, who are not of the less educated class- 

 es of the community. I have read an American 

 Treatise, in which not only are the plates taken 

 from an English one : but the anther gives his 

 readers a chapter upon chest-tounder ; ascribing 

 it to taking cold, &lc. ; a disease very well known 

 at the present day to proceed from continual pain 

 in the feet. 



I wjsh to give you a few very short observa 

 tions 'upon the most valuable breeds of horses ; 

 upon breeding them ; the treatment of horses (tppt 

 for their work ; and the management of foot Umo- 

 ness. J 



Nature originally formed to hei-self, theie iM 

 reason to suppose, two separae models of h»rseW 

 flesh; though the ditierent breeds of horset de--.- 

 rived from accidental varieties and mixtures'niay | 

 bo infinite. One she meant for daily drudgefv ir. 

 a northern climate ; the other for speed, for vio- 

 lent occasional exertion, to gratity the pride and 

 form one of the relaxations of luxury, and to live 

 in the tropicks. The two horses are still to be 

 found distinct ; but most horsetlesh is made up of 

 their mixture. 



The first is indigenous in the North of Europe. 

 The basis of his colour is almost invariab.y black ; 

 though in some few of his varieties, he is either 

 roan, or gray with most of his dark hairs red. — 

 He is seen in Massachuselts perfectly pure in the 

 Canadian: who has his fringe of hair starting di- 

 rectly from the knee ; his shortness of breath ; 

 his willingness to draw ; his sensibility to heat ; 

 and all the other attributes of the unadulterated 

 ' cart horse. The gray horse, sent here by Gener- 

 al Coffin, is a specimen of -his English variety ; 

 but not of ihe very largest size. The true Cana- 

 dian is a valuable horse, has a foot endowed with 

 very little sensibility, is very much inclined to 

 carry flesh, and exceedingly well suited to a 

 changeable climate ; but he is unfit for fast v.ork; 

 and I question the fact from what I have seen, of 

 his outworking the common Massuchusetts horse 

 at slow. 



A remarkable degree of misinformation exists 

 here as to the second ; and, it may be well to give 

 a very short description of him. In the countries 

 where he has always been found, at least since the 

 first dawn of history, he is about fourteen hands 

 and an inch high, but pretty compact; the basis 

 of his colour scarcely ever black ; but generally, 

 even if he is gray, some kind of red. He has a 

 remarkably expressive eye, and very transparent ; 

 his nose nearly straight, and the nostril disengag- 

 ed from the head ; a most capacious chest ; a 



wide and elevated loin ; tames the dock of liis 

 tail pointed straight to the end when he is in ac- 

 tion ; and hag u round, hit;h, and hard hoof. His 

 purity has always been most sedulously preserved 

 by the Asiatick Arabs His bones are of a much 

 denser texture than that of the cart horse ; his 

 skeleton is heavier in proportion to his apparent 

 size ; and ho can. stand under a heavier weight. 

 His most distinguishing characteristick, however, 

 is the natural clearness of his wind ; and breeds 

 of horses vary in this particular, according to tlie 

 piopuition they possess of his blood ; or, as it is 

 technically called, of "blood." This, with his 

 muscular power, arises from the perfection of his 

 organization ; and he is often abused from the 

 idea that he possesses a peculiar insensibility to 

 fatigue, which none can thoroughly explain. His 

 essence is speed. He is more inclined to save 

 himself by flight from any thing he does not thor- 

 oughly understand ; and is more irritable and va- 

 riable iu constitution. As he is probably jndigen 

 ous in the sands of Arabia only, there appe.ii-B no 

 reason why his foot should have been made able 

 to endure the concussion of a hard surface ; and 

 in some of his varieties, though the hnrn of it is 

 irenerally excessively hard, the internal foot pos 

 jesses extreme sensibility. He does not appear, 

 ■bder favorable circumstances, upon being trans 

 ported to the climate' of the cart-horse, to experi- 

 ence any diminution of his superiority to him. 

 Jhrough any number of generations ; though he is 

 useless as he approaches that of the Arabian. 



His most valuable vfiricty, and that witlt uihich 

 we are best acquainted, is the English thorouirh- 

 bred horse ; by which term is intended a horse, 

 all of whose blood is to be traced to acknowledg 

 ed racers, or to a very few celebrated individual 

 horses, supposed to have been chiefly of Arabian 

 blood, whose stock has in general proved so in 

 England Some of the pedigrees of this Anglo- 

 Arabian have been regularly kept from the reign 

 of James the first ; but a very large part of him is 

 derived from two individuals ; one carried there 

 about ninety years since, whose previous history 

 is utterly unknown ; the other, about one hundred 

 and thirty years since, who was brought from the 

 Desert of Palmyra. The blood of these two hois 

 es runs in the veins of the multitude of thorough- 

 bred horses annually foaled in England, on the 

 Continent, and in the United States-; and except- 

 ing the genuine cart horse, there is scarcely a 

 horse in England or the States entirely free from 

 it. 



The peculiar advantages and disadvantages of 

 the thorouch-bred horse, who is most corruptly 

 called in Virginia the blooded horse, for blood- 

 horse, are exceedingly necessary to be known to 

 every breeder ; as, though he is not so well adapt 

 ed himself to any purpose but horse-racing, as a 

 horse bred between him and one not thorough 

 bred, he is proved by the experience of a century 

 in England, In be Ihe only foundation of any reas 

 enable expectation of breeding superior horse- 

 flesh ; allowed to be, and sought after from that 

 cause by the Russians, the Germans and the 

 French, who are all becoming great horse-breed- 

 ers, and in most parts of the States, excepting in 

 New England. As a proof of this last fact, I can 



mention that Henry earned between two and 

 three thousand dollars to his owners, in the vicin- 

 ity of the city of New Vork, the last summer, a? 

 a breeder; and that be will probably this summer 

 earn much more. 



He (the thorough bred horse) is subject loinfi 

 nite variety ; but lie i.s generally accompanied by 

 tho following peculiarities. In wind, in muscular 

 power, and paiticularly in being able to perforin 

 feats, he far surpasses any other horse ; even tho 

 Arabian in his unimproved state. A case in point 

 has occurred in which two Cossack horses, pick- 

 ed from their immense studs, were beaten in a 30 

 mile race, over a hard road near St. Petersburg. 

 by a broken down English race-horse, and he also 

 beats the best horses that can be bought in Ara- 

 bia, in their ovn climate at Calcutta. All his 

 work is perforuieil in nuith less time, when the 

 pace appears-to ti.e eye to be the same ; he can 

 be used at an drly age — he possesses greatci 

 longevity — he suffers lesis I'roni the heat, than a 



hnv-bred horse, but there his advantages close 



His am Estor vsas totnied merely for galloping — 

 leaving all meaner business to the donkey and tho 

 mulp^ which, in his ancestor's climate, are noble 

 animals — and from this cause, as well as from the- 

 peculiar manner in which he has himself been 

 bred and treale<l, he is attended by two great dis- 

 advantages. He has, in the first place, been bred 

 Irom a succession of horses selected for their 

 •inpi rior galhqung from a race of gallopers. 



Kxc llenre in this pace, which is, however, 

 npiirly mi accurate criterion of wind and muscu- 

 lar slrenyth, is frenerally accompanied by a form- 

 ation of tt.e animal, inimical to excellence in anj- 

 other ; and a remarkable disinclination for exert- 

 ing himself on any other than extraordinary occa 

 sions. To assist him in economising his powers, 

 and to render them entirely subservient to the ra- 

 pidity of his progression, he is formed, frequently, 

 to move his feet so short a distance above tho 

 earth, that, particularly in a slow walk, he is con- 

 tinually liable to have it meet with some obstruc- 

 tion, when it is bent backwards from the fetlock 

 joint, and he is about to throw his weight upon it; 

 the muscles of the bended limb not being unde. 

 his command, he must occasionally lose his bal 

 ance ; and if it is his lore foot fall forwards ; and, 

 if it is his hind foot, catch backwards ; and, in 

 confirmation of the last observation, many supers 

 or gallopers appear actually unable to use their 

 muscles properly, when not in a state of violent 

 exertion ; have a slipping, thoughtless manner of 

 going at all other times ; and will not brace their 

 muscles. In the second place, he has been in gen 

 eral confined in the stable, and shod previously to 

 his being two years old ; which gives to his hoof 

 a totally dilTerent shape, in growing, by prevent 

 ing its lateral extension ; takes away much of the 

 means of resisting concussion which nature in- 

 tended it to have, by preventing the expansion 

 of the back part of it, when his weight is thrown 

 upon it ; and crowds the circulation of the sensi- 

 ble foot, by preventing the increase of size of the 

 vascular parts after the excessive concussion to 

 which the horse is drily subjected from that early 

 age. Being also fed with the largest allowance 

 of corn from before he is weaned, and the hoof 



