The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1884-01-31
The Horse and His Degeneracy.

History chronicles no Improvement in
the horse made by the agency of man.
The horses of the days of Pharaoh, or of
Homer, have their superiors in no part Of
the civilized world to-day. The Arabs
have for ages been noted for the excel
lence of their horses, but that excellence
was not created, nor has it been in
creased by the arts of man. Since the
time of Cromwell the horses of England
have steadily degenerated. Those
most cOnversant with the matter say
that this degeneracy has been the most
marked and rapid during the last fifty
years The horses of this country lack
the value of their ancestors of the Revo-
lutiOnary period. Nowhere, or at no
time, can man boast of improving the
horse by the arts of breeding. What is
the reason of this?
The horse, the OK, the hog and the
sheep comprise the four great classes of
dOmesticated farm animals. In certain
directions man has improved these
three last. These Improvements have
made them more valuable. The OK has
been bred to make more flesh from the
same amount of food, aud to lay on fat
at an earlier age; the cow has been
bred to give instead of a supply of milk
barely large enough to sustain her
richer quality; the hog has been bred
into a veritable machine to convert food
into pork; the sheep has been bred to
| yield more wool, and of finer texture,
| and to make more mutton. All these
changes have been beneficial because
the value of the animal lay in its pro-
ductiOn of beef, milk, pork, wool or
mutton, as the case might be. 1t is
true that these changes have been ac-
complished at the expense of vigOr and
endurance. These two qualities are i'm
pOrtant in the hog, OK or sheep, but
those that have been developed so far
OvershadOw their lessening that on the
whole we can say that the arts of man
have improved our kline, swine and
| sheep.
But it is not so with the horse. Its
value does not depend upon the guam
tity and quality of its flesh, milk or
! bodily covering. Unlike the others, its
value depends upon the work it can do.
| Hence vigOr and endurance are the
! prime essentials of a good horse. But
as man has lessened the vigOr and en-
| durance of the hog, OK and sheep, so he
! has of the horse. This is the invariable
| result of human art Whenever man
hampers with the work of nature he is
certain to lessen bodily vigor. 1t could
not be otherwise. For the course of
nature, undisturbed and undehected, is
always towards the greatest health
| Man changes the course of nature and
| the result is lessened vigor and endur-
| ance.
Man has improved some qualities of
! the horse. He has increased its speed,
| perhaps, but only for short distances.
! Our race-hOrses of to-day would make
! a sorry record with those of DAYS no
! longer past than those of the ''pony ex-
! press, to say nothing of the couriers of
! centuries ago, because they have been
made to deteriOrate in vigOr and endur-
ance. We have pOnderous, heavy
| horses to-day; but they can not do as
much work before the pillow or dray as
| those of the eighteenth century. We
can not point anywhere to horses pro-
| duced by breeding that are the equals
of the horses of the days of chivaIry.
| They lack not only in vigor and hardi-
hood, but in intelligence. AS the per-
feet symmetry Of development by the
course of nature has been destroyed by
man, the intelligence of the animal
lessened. Whenever the hand of man
has touched his equine friend it has
been only to mar.
This decrease in the excellence of the
horse can not be shifted from man to
time. One instance alone demonstrates
the I'm fairness of this. The Andalusans
| are now mere ponies, vet they are the
| descendants of those noble beasts ridden
to victory by the Spanish chivalry in the
| days when the valOr of the horse was as
| important as the valor of the knightly
rider. Taken from their hills and val
leys to serve in the haunts of men, and
to be subjected to the arts of breeding.
they have sadly degenerated. But tie
horses of the Spanish explorers Of both
| North and South America escaped, and
to-day the descendants of these same
| Spanish horses are, under the nurture
of nature and natures ways. the superb
| wild horses of the new world. They are
the work of nature; the Andalusian
ponies are the work of mans art
Prairie Farmer.