THE SOUTHERN PLANTE1!. 



101 



to get " weight carrying " Hunters for their 

 own use. These gentlemen have but one 

 Cleveland mare, valued at £200, who does the 

 whole work of their establishment, in the way 

 of drawing food, &c, with great despatch. 

 At one time they intended to breed Hunters 

 from her by the thorough bred Lothario, but 

 they finally concluded to rear Clevelands from 

 her. Mr. E. Marjoribanks, the head of the 

 house of Messrs. Coutts & Co., has a capital 

 foal by Cleveland Sbortlegs, out of a favorite 

 high bred Hack mare of his daughter's, and 

 Mr. Tanqueray, the celebrated short horn 

 breeder, shewed me an excellent colt for slower 

 work by the same horse out of a Suffolk mare 

 of his. The practice of gentlemen of such 

 knowledge and experience in breeding deserves 

 the highest consideration. The qualities and 

 points they most covet in large horses for 

 service out of a walk, are action with spirit, 

 short backs, strong loins, shortish and dark 

 legs, black feet and good eyes and heads. 

 Having given you distinguished authorities for 

 the breeding of thor©ugh bred, Hunter, Hack 

 and Suffolk mares to a Cleveland stallion, I 

 must add that the horse whose portrait appears 

 in Stephens " as the very perfection of what 

 a farm horse should be, " " was not a thorough 

 bred Clydesdale, but had a dash of coaching 

 [Cleveland] blood in him, a species of farm 

 horse very much in use on the borders, and 

 admired for their action and spirit." 



From a recent comparison between English 

 blood horses on the one hand, and the finest 

 specimens of Arabian horses presented to the 

 Queen of England by oriental sovereigns and 

 African horses (Barbs) imported into France 

 by military men on the other, it seemed to me 

 that the former were immeasurably superior to 

 their ancestral races in every respect. In 

 England, of late the Arab and Barb crosses 

 on blood mares have failed signally for the 

 turf, and on the part bred mares have not 

 proved valuable for useful purposes. Amusing 

 pictures are drawn of some solid Anglo Saxon 

 and Celtic troopers in the East now of 

 necessity mounted on Turkish horses, com- 

 monly accepted as a sub-variety of the Arab. 

 But for the combined activity, height and 

 weight, without regard to condition, of the 

 horses of the Scots Greys — ces diables de 



called a type or pure race, and indeed they are 

 for the most part of a very mixed lineage, and 

 of an extraordinary diversity of sizes, shapes 

 and colors ; but the further breeding together 

 of animals of similar qualities and confor- 

 mation will in the end produce a definite 

 breed. As a class they are certainly not 



according 



to 



either English 



or 



saddle horses, 



Virginia ideas; nor are they carriage - horses 

 or horses of general utility, from defect of size. 

 From the transactions of the New York State 

 Agricultural Society, it appears that the 

 J udges of that Society considered the Morgan 

 family, — which furnishes many fair and some 

 quick trotters, — as too small for "horses of 

 all work."* They would in England be 

 designated as "clever cobs." You will be 

 able to form a clear '{opinion of them, from 

 having seen lately one or two correct examples 

 at the Agricultural Fair in Richmond. The 

 common ancestor from whom this family is 

 derived, the original Morgan horse, so called 

 from the name of his owner, was foaled in 

 1793. He was sired by a blood stallion taken 

 from M * * * * * * 's great uncle the loyal Col. 

 DeLancey of this State, and out of a part 

 bred mare. His four immediate descendants 

 kept as stallions, in New Hampshire and Ver- 

 mont, were all out of mares of obscure or 

 unknown origin, some of them, however, 

 probably having a dash of French blood 

 as modified by the three-fold influences of 

 climate, food and crosses, in the adjacent 

 province of Canada. The admirers of 

 the North, sensible of 



chevaux gris, as they were called by the 



-that 

 well- 

 at 



great Napoleon in his last battle field 

 Regiment would never have earned its 

 merited fame either at Waterloo or 

 Balaclava. 



The American trotters, which are essentially 

 a Northern creation, have ©btained a just 

 celebrity abroad. They can hardly yet be 



the Morgans in 



their deficiency in stature for most purposes, 

 do not estimate them by height, the usual 

 method, but by weight like butcher's meat. 

 When in high order they tell comparatively in 

 the scales, for they have surprising aptitude in 

 taking on fat even to the extent of obesity. 

 Weight of a certain sort, but not that derived 

 from the adipose tissue, is certainly a very 

 important element, for conjoined with muscular 

 strength in due proportion it constitutes 

 motive power, on which depends the sole value 

 of the horse ; and that motive power is efficient 

 as the height and length and general shape 

 of the animal enable him to apply it with 

 facility and advantage to the work required of 

 him. 



You will, doubtless, remember that another 



distinguished family, the Vermont Black 



Hawks, as they appeared in procession at 



the New York Society's show at Saratoga 



o 



*It is much the fashion of the dealers in the 

 North to call a horse of any size a Morgan. At 

 the Springfield " National exhibition " fifty stallipns 

 passed under that name. 



