gg ILLUSTRATED STOCK DOCTOR. 



the times), could ])e had in Rhode I.shmd, much nearer home, a trade was 

 at once opened, which continued, with much protit to the Khode J-iland 

 Dreeders, till the roadways of the West Indies became so much improved 

 as to render the introduction of light carriages a natural consequence. A 

 iomewhat different horse was then required, and the trade in America r. 

 •tock began to decline. As the Cuban market became less and less prof- 

 itable, the interest of the stock-owiiers experienced a corresponding de- 

 crease, till at last the effort to preserve the pacer as a distinct breed ' 

 ceased altogether. 



At the present day, though the influence of the Narragansett Pacer 

 upon New England horses is in many instances perceptible, he is no 

 longer known in his former purity. 



XVII. The Vermont Draft Horse. 



Vermont has given the United States one of the two celebrated families of 

 draft horses, than which few of the breeds have combined greater excellence. 

 Animals with lofty crests, thin withers, short backed, round barrelled, close 

 ribbed, clean and sinewy limbed, that would at first be taken for ponies. 

 Standing next to them they would be found to be sixteen hands high 

 and over, and on the scales they would tilt the lever at from 1150 to 1250 

 pounds. 



Of the origin of the Vermont draft horse but little is known, but it is more 

 than probable that the old Suffolk cart horse, imported into Massachusetts in 

 1821, the Cleveland bay, brought there in 1825, and the thorough-bred horses 

 introduced in 1828, bred upon the best common mares of the country, have 

 produced a class of horses, the lighter ones of which were driven to the stage 

 coaches of thirty to fifty years ago, as they have seldom been driven in any 

 other hill country. 



And this class was grand for heavy work. The heavier specimens of which 

 furnished the best heavy team horses in the country, not excepting the Cones- 

 toga, a horse fully a hand higher, and admirable in every respect for heavy 

 draft, as we used to see them, in the great six and seven horse teams coming 

 from the mountains of Pennsylvania through to New York. It is to be re- 

 gretted that the furor over the Morgans since that time has caused the Ver- 

 mont draft horse to become quite rare, so that now it is rather difficult to find 

 a good specimen of the breed as it once existed. 



The disappearance of these fine old horses, however, is of a piece with the 

 disappearance of many other relics of the good old times. We think fondly 

 of what once prevailed, and it seems as though nothing ever could be so good 

 again, but those who never knew our favorites seem quite content, and get on 

 full as well as though our pet things never had existence. Thus the essential 

 things of one age sink from sight in another. 



