450 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
to seventeen and a half hands high, with bodies solid and bulky in 
proportion. Long before canals and railroads were known in our 
country, caravans of those teams were daily seen at all seasons of 
the year traversing the roads over the mountains between Philadel¬ 
phia and Pittsburgh, and with bear skin housings upon the harnes, 
and an arch of bells above them, with the driver seated on the near 
wheel-horse; a more picturesque spectacle of the kind could rarely 
be imagined. Their usual rate of travel w*as about twelve to four¬ 
teen miles a day. But those caravans, since the construction of 
railways, have mostly passed away, and the descendants of the 
stately teams are now devoted chiefly to agricultural uses, and the 
drays and wagons in the cities. It is doubtful if a better (dass of 
heavy draught horses than they have ever existed. It is claimed 
by some writers that the Conestoga has been bred to his high degree 
of excellence by crosses of the thoroughbred English horse, but 
without sufficient evidence of the fact, as for the last seventy year® 
he has developed no trait of the blood-horse in his composition, 
and in his characteristics, has adhered solely to the type of his 
original progenitors. 
Other foreign breeds of the draught horse of decided excellence 
have in later years been introduced among us, and are much ap¬ 
proved. Among these may be named, in the order of introduction, 
the Clydesdale. This horse is of Scottish descent, of the largest 
size, seventeen to eighteen hands high, with a ponderous body, stout 
limbs, hairy at the fetlocks, of high and noble carriage, and unsur¬ 
passed in weight and strength. They occasionally reach a weight 
of seventeen, even eighteen hundred pounds. They were first in¬ 
troduced by the Scottish farmers into Upper Canada, where they 
have been bred in considerable .numbers, and are still annually im¬ 
ported. There have been also some direct importations from Scot¬ 
land to the United States. Many of the Canadian importations 
have found their way into several of our states, where, for heavy 
agricultural and other draught, they serve a valuable purpose. 
The Suffolk Punchy so called, is a draught horse of English 
breeding and descent. He is of large size, but smaller in bulk and 
stature than the Clydesdale, somewhat similar in style of body and 
limb, but without the hairy fetlock. A few of them have been im¬ 
ported into Canada and the United States, but have not yet ac¬ 
quired the popularity of the Clydes, although of decided excel¬ 
lence, and a model of their kind. 
