372 
BLOOD HOUSE, ALEXANDER, ETC. 
BLOOD HORSE, ALEXANDER. 
The cut below shows a thorough-bred horse, of 
good size and form, for breeding farm and road 
horses. The portrait is rather leggy, more so than 
the original, and in this respect, is objectionable for 
the purpose designed. We deem it of great im- 
portance to maintain the best standard of blood 
horses, for the purpose of correcting the inherent 
faults of a large proportion of our American horses. 
They possess wind and spirit, as well as density 
of bone and muscle, which are essential requisites 
in all working animals. Many of them, however, 
do not possess the requisite size and form, to breed 
the most useful and serviceable workers or roadsters, 
and some have a constitutional nervousness, or 
viciousness of temper, which totally disqualifies 
them for good breeding. 
While we are decided advocates for the infusion 
of a large proportion of blood in all animals, we 
would by no means be indiscriminate in the use of 
it. Many of our horses are already bred suffi- 
ciently high in the blood, and a further addition 
would impair, rather than improve, their useful 
qualities i and many bloods, from possessing one 
or more of the above defects, are worse than use- 
less for hreeding. When all the characteristics of 
the best bloods are combined, as in Messenger, and 
some of his descendants, there can hardly be too 
much of it. A nice discrimination can always 
detect the precise length, to which breeders may be 
Blood Horse, Alexander 
justified in going, to secure the fullest amount of 
benefit, with the least proportion of defect, from the 
use of the thorough bred. 
-Fig. 91, 
A FLIGHT THROUGH MASSACHUSETTS. 
Yankee Farming, Continued — The Contrast. — 
I will now take the residence of Mr. E. R. Mudge, 
at Swamscot Beach, in Lynn, Massachusetts, as a 
contrast to those described in my two former arti- 
cles; because it is a good specimen of what can 
he done on a very rough spot, and because I like 
to show the public what an enlightened and enter- 
prising man, imbued with the spirit of agricultural 
improvement, can accomplish by spending his 
money in a rational way. That the reader may 
not think me invidious, however, in my selections, 
I will here state that there are a great many im- 
provements annually effected in all the New-Eng- 
land states, and not a few gentlemen there have 
done, and are still doing, as much, perhaps, as Mr. 
Mudge; but in my hasty flight, I could not take 
time to visit them ; and as f only speak of things 
seen, I must defer notices of others, until, with the 
spring birds, I may return from the south and trim 
my wings again for another flight through my old 
native slate. 
Mr. Mudge is better known as proprietor of the 
Verandah Hotel, New Orleans, which is one of the 
best in America, than as a Yankee farmer, spending 
his winters there and summers here. His farm 
consists of 120 acres, and is mostly of that char- 
acter which the Indian described as his farm — "ail 
long and no wide, and run deviling up among the 
rocks;" just such land and rocks as are to be seen 
in New England, and nowhere else, with the old 
stone walls, and ancient apple trees, with here and 
there a little "meadow," on arable spots. 
Mr. M. paid #4,000 for the place some four or 
