THE HORSE. 29 



varieties, all more or less distinct, and all descended from one 

 common ancestry, the common wild pigeon." 



As my friend Agassiz once remarked at a meeting in 1864 : 



" There is a tendency in all animal life to adapt itself to the 

 conditions under which it must live, but a change may be so 

 abrupt and complete as to overcome this tendency, and under 

 such condition the race would speedily become extinct, or 

 gradually die out with a few generations of feeble descend- 

 ants ; but under circumstances less sudden and unfavorable 

 a few might survive, being those individuals that from peculi- 

 arity of organism suffered less from the change. These, in 

 their turn, would produce the peculiarities of their race modi- 

 fied by the new surrounding conditions. These, again, would 

 produce animals still better adapted to the new order of things,, 

 until, in course of time, we should have a race widely differing 

 from the original type created — or evolved — ■ by a ' survival 

 of the fittest,' and remodeled and refashioned by these changed 

 conditions of life." 



There is no class of domestic animals in which the effects of 

 climate and food are more apparent than in the horse. Na- 

 ture's law. in the history of the world demonstrates that when- 

 ever the horse has existed for centuries on rich and fertile 

 plains and in temperate climates, he becomes distinguished for 

 size and strength ; whenever he has been the inhabitant of cold 

 and mountainous regions he becomes diminutive and hardy, if 

 left largely to care for himself. Man may do much by supply- 

 ing warm stables and abundant food, as well as by selection, to 

 counteract the influence of climate ; but in spite of his inter- 

 ference, the tendency will constantly be to adhere to Nature's 

 great law in this respect. 



Mountainous regions and rigorous climate will produce the 

 toughest and hardiest races of horses, as has been demonstrated 

 in the New England Morgans and Canadian horses of our own 

 country ; while our fertile prairies and luxuriant bottom lands 

 and valleys are by Nature adapted as the home of the heavy 

 draft horse. 



