390 
Tour In England, iNo. 9. 
O’ Postmasters will please act as agents 
when agreeable with other duties, and also 
procure suitable agents for us. It is believed 
that not one in twentyoi the farmers’ families 
in America is yet reached by agricultural 
publications, and all would be conferring an 
inestimable good upon this most numerous, 
useful, and indispensable of all other classes 
of our citizens, by inducing them to subscribe 
for and read more works of this kind. 
The American Agriculturist is stereotyped 
and back numbers can always be furnished, 
and having now an extensive and fast increas¬ 
ing circulation, it has become an excellent 
means of advertising. 
We have received a great many flattering 
testimonials of our course in, and conduct of, 
this paper ; but as we choose to give our 
readers practical useful matter in these pages, 
in preference to any thing which can be con- 
strued into self-vaunting and puffs, we shall 
close this address to our patrons, by saying 
that we do not feel the less grateful for their 
kind expressions and good wishes, and it 
shall be our humble endeavors to still further 
merit them. 
Tom* in England—No 
English Horses. —Notwithstanding what 
has been said about the degeneracy of the 
horses of England, the best informed we 
met abroad, think that on the whole, they 
are still improving. The forced mush¬ 
room growth they now give their racers, and 
above all, the early age at which they are 
brought onto the turf are, however, exceeding¬ 
ly prejudicial to their strength and endur¬ 
ance, if not to their speed, and if persisted 
in, must ultimately, if it has not already, ma¬ 
terially injure the breed in these most desir¬ 
able qualities. There are, however, some 
exceptions to the above observations. Hark- 
away, for example, is a real phenomenon, and 
is thought to be equal to any thing England 
ever bred. He is a horse of remarkable 
speed and of prodigious power and substance, 
standing within an inch of 17 hands, of great 
bone and muscle, and is considered among 
turfmen, as the very perfection of form for a 
race-horse. According to the official report, 
he won the Goodwood cup at five years old, 
carrying 130 lbs., performing the distance 21- 
miles in 4 m. 58 s., but according to 
another report, it was done in 4 m. 27 s., 
which would have been at the rate of a mile 
in 1 m. 37 s., but English time is very 
loosely kept, and but little to be depended 
on, unless reported by our own countrymen. 
There is no doubt but Harkaway is as good 
and fast a horse as Firetail, Eclipse, or Fly* 
ing Childers ever was ; although it is said of 
the latter, that he run a mile in one minute, 
and of the former that he performed the same 
distance in 1. m. 4 sec. But this time is not 
authenticated, and is, withal, so incredible, 
that it should be rejected as totally unworthy 
of record in the calenders of veritable rac¬ 
ing. 
We could not but admire the beauty 
of form and great size of the English colts. 
Most of them stood 15 hands high when 
brought out at two and a half years old, and 
some of them were full 16 hands ; and as a 
celebrated jockey remarked to us, “ it was 
really wonderful what the young things 
would do, n and this sententious expression 
of the shrewd jockey, seems to be the whole 
gist of the thing, its sport and excitement. 
But to us it was a painful sight to see 
animals reared with such care and expense, 
one half of them broken down in training, 
and the larger share of the other half in early 
racing, and then cast like worthless weeds 
away; whereas, had they been kept till five 
years old before being brought out, they 
might have proved of some value, at least, as 
saddle horses, and for light cavalry. In one 
particular, however, w^e will give the English 
credit over the Americans, they usually make 
but one run, and to be called upon for four, 
five, and as it sometimes happens with us, 
even six heats, would be considered here, as 
w^e wish it universally v T as everywhere else, 
as the very height of cruelty, and an indicta¬ 
ble offence. But this is a painful subject to 
dwell upon, and little interesting to the agri¬ 
culturist; w 7 e will therefore pass it over, merely 
premising that owing to the manner in which 
English horses are now bred, it seems to be 
generally thought, at least on the western 
side of the Atlantic, they w r ould prove no 
match for our racers in deep mud and over 
hard gravelly courses at four mile heats.* 
The hunters of England are now nearly 
thorough-bred, are strong made, clean limb¬ 
ed animals, stoughter and more compact 
than the racer usually is, and reminded 
* Some object to this conclusion as too hasty, and say, 
for example, that Lady Elizabeth at five years old, car¬ 
rying 135 lbs. ran four miles at the Doncaster course, 
in 1833, in 7 m. 35 sec. time almost as good as that of 
Fashion’s late unequalled race in America of same age, 
and carrying only 111 lbs. But we are confident, on 
the fine elastic turf of the courses of England, that a 
horse can carry more weight with greater ease than 
over the harder and more unelastic courses in America, 
but as a discussion of this subject is more proper for a 
Turf Register than this paper, we shall forbear enter¬ 
ing further upon it. 
