GEO. W. CURTIS—DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN TROTTER. 35 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN TROTTER—A 
STUDY IN ANIMAL PHYSICS. 
By Geo. W. Curtis, M. S. A., Director Texas Experiment Station and 
Professor of Agriculture A. & M. College, College Station, Texas. 
Read June 14, 1892. 
The aim of all progressive modern thought and enterprise is toward 
a field of future promise—the accomplishment of great results in short¬ 
est time. As the world moves onward, one who lags behind must 
either learn to follow those of quicker thought and action, or be classed 
with those who, having eyes see not, and having ears hear not; human 
drones who live in memories of the past, yet think to claim a share— 
a full sized portion—of the fruits of modern progress. 
As a nation the American people occupy the foremost rank of nine¬ 
teenth century civilization. To America must be credited not alone 
the broadly liberal live and let live policy which has made our shores 
a landing place for so many million subjects of despotic royalty, but as 
well, and far more to her credit, let us place the rapid, healthy force 
of American brain and courage, which has made us what we are—the 
greatest nation of the world in all things most to be desired. 
To such a people as our own we might expect to turn for practical 
solution of those great problems of the breeder’s art, which, accom¬ 
plished by Americans, have given to our people first place in the de¬ 
velopment and improvement of the modern breeds of domestic animals. 
Getting a basis for our work from established breeds of Europe, we 
have been able not alone to hold our own, but to steadily improve 
until the best individuals of nearly every breed of horses, cattle, sheep, 
and swine at present known to modern breeders are found on this side 
the Atlantic. Not only this—in the development of our own peculiar 
breeds, the American Trotter, the pacer, and the American saddle 
horse, we have proven two things: First, that artificial gaiting may 
be made permanent and become transmissible, or subject to the laws 
of heredity; and second, that by solution of the gaiting problem the 
new world has succeeded where the old world always failed, save in 
the single instance of the Russian Orloff—a breed in no way equaling 
that finished product of the breeder’s art, the American Trotter. Be¬ 
sides a feeling of pride in the fact that our breeders have succeeded 
beyond their most sanguine hopes, a close study of the methods pur¬ 
sued by leading trainers, and the physical and mental characters of the 
winning horses at either gait, brings up matters of interest to all, and 
of especial moment to the student of animal physics. 
