30 THE HORSE. 



The lesson taught by these illustrations is obvious : none of 

 our improved breeds of horses, or other animals, are adapted 

 to all climates or all conditions of life. To be at their best 

 they must each be kept and cared for as nearly as possible 

 under the same conditions, as to food and climate, as when 

 they attained their greatest excellence. 



According to Greek mythology, the horse was the gift 

 of gods to men when Neptune struck the earth with his tri- 

 dent ; and he was made immortal that he might bear his 

 master company to that land beyond the dividing river. 



Congressman John E. Russell of Massachusetts, when Sec- 

 retary of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture in 

 1886, in a lecture before that body, goes on record as saying 

 that the horse is the only beast that goes to Heaven. 



No other animal is, or can be so thoroughly adapted to the 

 wants of man as the horse. For work or for pleasure he is the 

 quick, ready, willing, intelligent, and capable servant of the 

 human race. He enters with cheerfulness into the hardest of 

 labor, carries man's heaviest burdens, hauls his huge loads, 

 breaks up his tough lands, cultivates his crops, markets his 

 produce, etc. ; or in administering to our pleasures he is the 

 same unfailing friend. 



The business man, the sporting man, and the man of leisure 

 alike go to the horse for their recreation. Entering with the 

 keenest zest into the excitement of the speed ring, he furnishes 

 by far the most popular sport of the age. In the shafts, at 

 the pole, or under the saddle, he gladly rests and refreshes 

 the worried brain-worker, the imprisoned merchant, and the 

 wearied farmer. He is alike subservient to the child and the 

 adult, to the gentler or to the sterner sex, refusing no service 

 which his herculean strength will enable him to perform. 



The horse stock of the United States has continued to 

 increase in numbers and value, until now, according to the 

 government tax returns for 1893, they amount to $769,224,799, 

 which, no doubt, means to represent a purchasing power of not 

 less than a cool $1,000,000,000. 



