Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1894-08-10

recently he has published valuable con-
trihutons to the history of the United
States and of this State
BREAD LOAF I'M,
Ripton, VT, Aug. /, 1891. !
JOSEPH BATTELL, Esq,
Dear .Sr:-Nou have made a good be-
ginning of a most useful werk, in your
book on the Morgan Horse. When you
have finished it by making the Morgan
horse the road horse of the country you
will have, as YOU deserve to have, the
gratitude of the farmers of Vermont and
the lovers of good horses throughout the
country. You will succeed because in
the Morgan horse you have all the condi-
tons of success. His unfaiing good tenn
per, his freedom from vicious habits and
tendency to unsoundness, his beauty of
color, grace of movement, speed, his
power of impressing his qualities upon
his descendants, in short, his general
form and character, are better adapted to
the result desired than those of any other
family of horses. He is essentially Yer
mont horse. Here his good points first
brought HIM into notice; here he has been
a favorite for almost century, and here
he ought to attain his highest develop
ment. His principal competitor is and
will be the Hackney, an English horse
which lacks not only speed but most of
the other good points of the Morgan, and
l. -, ifrht
try is naturally preiudiced in favor of its
own. The impression made upon me by
the first picture of the Hackney | saw is
still vivid. 1t was a cut of the "English
Road Horse" in "Goodrich's Family En-
encyclopedia" published in my boyhood.
1t looked to me like a good, strong,
''chunked" horse with counter-brush in
the place of tail.
Although not horseman myself, be-
long to a family which bred the Morgan
horse from 1920 to 1866, and has raised
many fine animals.
In my bOyhood travelling by the stage
coach was in its prime and the desidera-
tum of the breeder was to provide horse
for the stage coach. The main roads went
over and not around the hills. The teams
of six horses would move loaded stage
oyer the hills and through the valleys at
speed of about ten miles an hour, and
bring the coach up to the hotel at the end
OF their route on the gallop without show
ing any signs of fatigue. For that pur-
pose a weight of about nine hundred
pounds and ability to trot mile in three
minutes was all the weight and speed re-
qulred. The stage teams were celebrated
they were described by scores of writ
ers, and none of the teams in the useless,
Extensively fancy coaching of the present
time approached in style and action the
stage teams of 1910 between Montpelier
and Burlington or the Connecticut river.
The stage-coach has been superseded
by the railroad, and stage teams are no
longer wanted. For general road pur-
poses there is wanted all the speed and
action of the Morgan horse of 1910, and
from fifty to one hundred pounds addi-
tiona weight. Such horses will make
their ten miles an hour, or fifty miles
a day, without distress, and they will take
the dust of no faster team on any part of
the Journey.
Naturally, | carry in my memory
SHARP y-delined picture of the Morgan
horse as he was about fifty years ago,
when breeders began to make sacrifices
for speed. They produced such phenom-
email horses as Black Hawk, Ethan Allen,
Flying Morgan and others, but they sac
rificed the stronger limbs and vigorous
strength of their sires. A written descrip-
ton of any form is always tame. If |
were to describe the typical Morgan of my
boyhood, | should say that he had short
back, a round body, clean limbs of good
size, heavy shoulders, a broad chest, a