CHAPTER IV. 



eOW TO BREED A HORSE — CANADIAN BLOOD. 



% OAVADIAN ORIGINALLY THE FRENCH NORMAN — CHARACTERISTICS— HABM 

 MOOD— SPEED— MODE OP IMPROVING THEM— CROSSING WITH THOROUOB 

 JBEDS. 



IflERE is one breed or stock of horses to which, thus far, 

 we have but casually alluded. We mean the Canadian. 

 It deserves, probably, a more extended notice, as being in 

 itself, in the first place, a perfectly distinct family, where 

 pure ; and in the second, as being very widely extended, 

 both in its mixed and unmixed form, in the Northern 

 and Eastern States; and, moreover, as being itself an 

 exceedingly valuable animal as a working horse, and a 

 progenitor, or progenitrix. The Canadian horse where he 

 is yet to be found in his pure state, — that is to say, un- 

 crossed with either the English thorough-bred, or tho 

 English high-bred stallion of the hunter caste, — \s, origi- 

 nally, beyond doubt, the French Norman horse ; and even 

 where the crosses mentioned still exist, the French Norman 

 blood vastly preponderates. The present characteristics 

 of the Canadian are — a head rather large than otherwise, 

 but lean, bony, and well formed, with an unusually broad 

 forehead, with the ears far apart, carried loftily, a small 

 clear eye, and a courageous aspect ; a bold upstanding, but 

 thick crest ; a broad, full chest and a strong shoulder, a 

 little apt to be too straight, as well as to be low and heavy 

 at the withers; a stout, strongly -framed barrel, the charao' 



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