Horse RatsiInc IN CoLoniaL New ENGLAND 929 
we could supply them, and sent an agent to this country to purchase 
them on such terms as he could . . . He commenced buying and 
shipping till all the good ones were sent off ’’ (178). 
It is easy to understand that such a large and unexpected demand 
from Cuba, without restriction as to price, might deplete 
the breed very seriously. But if the Narragansett planters did thus 
actually kill the. goose that laid the golden eggs by shipping off all 
their breeding stock, it must be that there were other factors at work 
which made them willing to sell. It might indicate, for example, that 
their experience in attempting to sell in their former markets after 
the war, had convinced them that the end of the earlier export trade was 
in sight. : 
There are, however, other obvious reasons which probably contributed 
to the dispersal of the sturdy little pacers which had so long been a 
profitable commodity. They were not beautiful at best; they were small, 
scarcely more than fourteen hands high, and their gait, while desirable 
for saddle purposes, did not fit them for driving to advantage in team 
or harness (179). All these things undoubtedly worked against the 
Narragansetts as the roads in the colonies became better, wheeled 
vehicles came into use, and there was need for larger and heavier animals 
for harness and draft. The pacers were, in short, of most value under 
frontier conditions, and as the region along the coast became more 
settled there is evidence that they were actually dispersed to remoter 
regions, especially to Canada, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It is in these 
places that the pacing blood seems to have been preserved in the midst 
of the influx of Enelish thoroughbred stock beginning about 1750 
(180). 
Thus closed the final chapter in New England’s leadership in the 
exportation of at least one product of an agricultural nature — a leader- 
ship which had been held undisputed for more than a century; which in 
the lean years of her early commerce had eked out to good purpose 
the exchanges of New England with the West Indies and by which she 
was enabled in turn to purchase English goods; which had aided in 
the opening and settlement of her lands remote from the coasts and 
harbors; and which finally had a part in the development in the Narra- 
gansett district of a social and economic organization based on agri- 
culture, which was comparable to any other found in continental 
America during the colonial period. 
