IMPROVEMENT OF HORSES. 
165 
certain size is attained there is nothing gained by making him 
larger, since what might be gained in power, would be lost in 
activity and economy of care, and keeping. Moreover it is by 
no means true that the horse has strength in proportion to his 
size: the experience of every one present must have convinced 
him of this. Strength does not so much depend upon the size 
of the muscle, as upon the quality of its fibre and the quantity 
and quality of the brain, which is the seat of motive power. 
Still less, does strength depend on the size of the bones, as 
some appear to think. How often among men is the well-knit, 
wiry-muscled, strong-willed strippling, more than a match for 
the great elephantine, loose-jointed, pulpy lubber. I have done 
more work in the plow-field with a team whose height was 
fifteen hands high—day in and day out—with less fatigue to 
my horses, than my neighbor could possibly do with his span 
of elephants, seventeen hands high and large in proportion. 
Were I to descend to minutiae and enumerate the essentia 
“points,” in their order, 
The head should be well proportioned to the body—not small 
as some horsemen insist, without regard to the dimensions of 
■ 
the trunk, but a little too small rather than a good deal too 
large, and what might be called bony. The forehead should be 
wide between the eyes, and full and prominent between a line 
connecting the eyes and the crown, giving sufficient room for a 
large brain; and inasmuch as the horse cannot breathe through 
his mouth, but is exclusively dependant upon the nasal passa¬ 
ges, the head should also be broad just below the eyes so as to 
allow of those passage being large, in view of the effects of 
colds and catarrhs. The nostrils should be well extended and lin¬ 
ed with crimson; the nose thin and in a right line with the head 
proper. The lips should be thin, the chin small; the mouth 
deep, the branches of the under jaw well spread at the upper 
angle, (which should be well rounded) so as to allow sufficient 
space for the larynx and consequent free breathing, though the 
neck be curbed, (as it never should be;) the cheek full and mus¬ 
cular. The eyes should be deep, full and lustrous, (without de- 
