116 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIS 
Amazelwako —red cane. Umswazi, Ihlokonde, 
Umofwini, Umdendebula. 
I hope you will cultivate the seed I send, 
or give it to some agricultural friend who 
will, and if you think proper, notice it in the 
Journal of Commerce. I understand that 
there will be an effort made to take out a 
patent for its manufacture into sugar in the 
United States. Yours truly, 
H. A. Wilder, 
Missionary, A. B. C. F. M. 
THE HORSE- 
[Continued from page 100.] 
The Trotting Hacks or Trotters [resem¬ 
bling the Yorkshire Roadsters] differ a good 
deal in their breeding, but are not as highly 
bred as the first two classes. Harry Hie- 
over evidently thinks the riding a strongly 
pulling trotter at his fast pace presents a 
very vulgar and butcher-like appearance. 
He likes, however, fast trotters in harness in 
light vehicles, and considers their looks in 
action then not ungentlemanly. 
Under all circumstances Harry Hieover 
unites with the French in condemning as 
abominable the gait of the amble or pace to 
which some of our Virginians at the present 
day are so partial.* He complains of the 
term Cob as a hacknied one, and it is plain 
from his undercurrent of opinion that he dis¬ 
likes the whole class of Cobs as ungentle- 
manly brutes. Cobs, from the docility and 
quietness of their tempers and their near¬ 
ness to the ground ( pres de terre ) are well 
adapted to the service of inactive and old 
men—old fogies, as Young America would 
disrespectfully say. I remember to have 
seen Lord Lansdowne, among others, riding 
a Cob, taking care, however, to have the 
sorry figure he made redeemed, in a meas¬ 
ure, by an attendant groom mounted on a 
horse of the most distinguished style. 
The Rev. John M. Wilson f speaks of the 
Hunting Horse as the country gentleman’s 
saddle horse, and of the Hack or Hackney 
as a riding or road horse of any kind. He 
adds—“ The common saddle horse, techni¬ 
cally a Hackney, may possess any character 
intermediate between that of a well-tempered 
easy-going and long-enduring Hunter, and 
that of the most miserable road hack. The 
farmer’s saddle horse is, in some instances, 
a Hackney, in some a Hunter, but in the 
great majority, a horse of all work, adapted 
equally to the saddle and to draught.” 
I have not the English or any unmutilated 
edition of Youatt, but I believe he speaks 
of “ the farmer’s horse,” and describes him 
as half Hackney and half Cart Horse. He 
probably refers to a horse very similar in 
character to the heaviest Yorkshire Road¬ 
sters or the old Road Horses mentioned by 
Low. Cecil and other well known English 
writers, I think, employ the term Roadster 
in so vague a sense as to embrace every 
thing of the horse kind that can go out of a 
walk, and is used on the road, whether in 
harness or under the saddle, in contradis¬ 
tinction to the field and the turf and Nim¬ 
rod occasionally employs the word road- 
horse as synonymous with stage coach 
horse. It must be confessed that there is 
much confusion in hippological nomencla¬ 
ture, partly in consequence of the modern 
change and continued advance to a lighter 
standard of all the classes and varieties of 
English horses for quick movement. 
Although Yorkshire is the most decided 
breeding county of the Race Horse in the 
Kingdom—the Rawcliffe Paddocks Company 
alone having the past season forty-three, and 
‘The best Virginia horsemen of the old school did not 
ride pacers. 
IRural Cyclopaedia—Edinburgh and London, 1852. 
fA “Roadster” in the northern portion of the United 
States is a horse used in a light pleasure vehicle. 
Sir Tatton Sykes thirty-seven, racing foals— 
the Agricultural Society leave him out of 
view, (except as the progenitor of Hunters,) 
as having other patrons in abundance, and 
perhaps as not falling strictly within the de¬ 
scription of a “ useful ” horse, and recog¬ 
nize but the three distinct classes of horses 
for service out of a walk which I have con¬ 
sidered—Coaching or Carriage Horses, 
Hunters and Roadsters; but you will have 
perceived that one of these classes, that of 
Hunters, is not a breed by itself. 
4. The horses for agricultural purposes, 
the plow or the cart, in Great Britain, are 
incapable of any other than a walking draft, 
and are divided into the three following 
classes : 
The Suffolk Punch horses are character¬ 
ized by general uniformity of color, varying, 
however, in shade. In England they are 
called “ red ” and “ chestnutbut we 
should, for the most part, designate them as 
of a light yellowish sorrel, with lighter 
manes, tails and legs. They have often a 
blaze in the face and some white feet, and 
are very plain in appearance, being pig-eyed 
and having heavy, coarse heads. Their 
strong predisposition to the numerous hered¬ 
itary diseases of the hock, and indeed un¬ 
sound legs and feet generally, are such in¬ 
superable objections to the Suffolks, accord¬ 
ing to the old proverb of “ no feet no horse,” 
that it would not be worth while to criticise 
them further, more especially as I am en¬ 
tirely supported in this estimate by Mr. 
Yager, the competent and intelligent agent 
whom our public spirited friend, Mr. Dulany, 
despatched to England to bring over horses 
for him. I should infer—it is impossible to 
know—from a comparison between the 
Suffolks of the present day and the descrip¬ 
tions of the preexisting breed, that crosses 
upon the original stock of that name with 
a view to their elongation, to give them a 
more adequate stride, or enlargement for 
additional weight in the collar, had not in 
the aggregate result been successful, but had 
caused them to lose much of their former 
energy and pluck. At the last Annual Coun¬ 
try Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Socie¬ 
ty the Suffolk stallions were badly beaten. 
The other English race of agricultural 
horses, usually designated the “ Cart Horse.” 
is various in color, but more frequently 
black. The largest specimens are seen in 
the brewers’ drays in London, and, as you 
are aware, are the heaviest horses in the 
world. This race was, to a certain extent, 
modified by crosses of native stallions upon 
some mares which Bakewell imported from 
Holland. The horses of this breed, I pre¬ 
sume, would be dissolved by our sun in 
summer, and are moreover only adapted to 
circumstances in which no sort of activity 
but merely massive power is required—very 
smooth flat land and perfect roads and the 
slowest draught. 
The Scotch horses, the Clydesdales, of 
different colors, are for us, I am satisfied, the 
best horses of the British Islands in the class 
of exclusively walking draught. It is a sig¬ 
nificant fact that the distinguished President 
of the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng¬ 
land, Mr. Pusey, employs them, and that 
General de Lamoriciere* states that, from 
experiments made in France, they dis¬ 
patched their work much more quickly than 
either the Suffolks or the indigenous races 
of France. They are handsomer and more 
active than the Suffolks, with longer limbs 
and longer bodies. This conformation 
gives them a greater stride by which they 
make more rapid progress, but it may aug¬ 
ment the expensiveness of their keep. Tra¬ 
dition refers the origin of this breed to an 
importation, by one of the Dukes of Hamil¬ 
ton, of Flanders stallions which were crossed 
‘Rapport au conseil des Haras. 
on the native mares of the county of Lanark, 
in the vale of the Clyde. 
Though the French have occasionally im¬ 
ported British horses, which are larger than 
their own, for agricultural porposes, I found 
the universal opinion in France to be that 
they had nothing to envy the British in the 
way of horses for slow draught, ( gros trait,) 
and that they prided themselves very much 
on a valuable, hardy and energetic race, 
mostly of a gray color, properly called Per- 
cheron, from their native district Le Perche, 
but which our American writers have vague¬ 
ly styled Norman, (as the synonyme of 
French, perhaps,) from the fact of having 
first seen them in the diligences in Norman¬ 
dy on the way to Paris. While many of the 
larger animals of this breed, which pass by 
insensible gradations into the Boulonnais, 
(the biggest and coarsest horse of France,) 
are used for the heaviest draught, the small¬ 
er and more agile are employed throughout 
the Empire in the diligences—an intermedi¬ 
ate draught {trait intermediaire—trait moyen) 
which does not exist either in England or in 
the United States—for the simultaneous 
transportation of passengers (with their lug¬ 
gage) and merchandise, at a pace between 
that of the English stage coach and the heavi¬ 
ly laden wagon. To secure the requisite 
energy and quickness for this special and 
severe labor, it is necessary to employ stal¬ 
lions ; and I do not believe that geldings— 
from the peculiarity of the race in losing 
much of their power, spirit and endurance 
on castration—would answer in our country 
except for slow work. Indeed, I never saw 
or heard of French gentlemen riding or 
driving Percherons; and I mention them 
only, because they maybe deemed the arche¬ 
types of the French horses and are the dom¬ 
inant race employed in the public vehicles 
and in rural labor. The French prefer their 
horses for all private rapid uses (chevaux de 
luxe) to be of the blood of the races dislin- 
guees, which they are compelled to seek 
either across the channel or the Mediterra¬ 
nean.* Crosses with Percherons vulgarize 
for many generations the English stock for 
quick draught (trait Uger, by which is meant 
every draught from that of the coach or car 
riage inclusive to that of the lightest vehicle) 
arid for the saddle, by shortening their necks, 
(which is fatal to a saddle horse and to the 
style of a harness horse,) by enlarging their 
heads, clodding their shoulders, drooping 
their rumps, cleaving their quarters, putting 
hair on their legs, or otherwise marring their 
symmetry, beauty or activity. 
‘It is true that France, of necessity, imports a good 
many horses from Germany, not for the purpose of repro¬ 
duction, however. They are not ill looking except that 
they frequently have the Roman nose, (Tete busqute,) but 
it is said they soon sink under fatigue. 
[To be continued.] 
Nutritive Qualities of the Onion. —It is 
worthy of notice as an extensive article of 
consumption in this country. It is largely 
cultivated at home, and is imported, to the 
extent of 700 or 800 tuns a year, from Spain 
and Portugal. But it rises in importance, 
when we consider that in these latter coun¬ 
tries it forms one of the common and univer¬ 
sal supports of life. It is interesting, there¬ 
fore, to know that in addition to the peculiar 
flavor which first recommends it, the onion 
is remarkably nutritious. According to my 
analysis, the dried onion root contains from 
twenty-five to thirty per cent of gluten. It 
ranks, in this respect, with the nutritious pea 
and the gram of the East. It is not merely 
as a relish, therefore, that the wayfaring 
Spaniard eats his onion with his humble 
crust of bread, as he sits by the refreshing 
spring; it is because experience has long 
proved that, like the cheese of the English 
laborer, it helps to sustain his strength also, 
