Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1900-06-23
CARRIAGE TOURING.
An Experts Practical Suggestions for
the Road.
How Much Can Be Made In a Day-The Horse
and His Care.

health facility for thoroughly and
leisurely enjoying scenery, time for eX-
ploring and gathering interesting in
formation concerning historic localities,
opportunity for studying native
humankind on it's native soil-all at
moderate expense. These are posi-
bilities that the rightly managed car
riage tour offers, says a writer in the
Boston Transcript.
Within the past two years, there has
been a manifestly increasing interest
among cultivated people in this most
attractive mode of spending a summer
vacation. The vagabond and pedler
are beginning to find that they
no longer can claim exclusive
enjoyment of the joys of
the open road. People of education
and refinement are coming to long for
participation in the mysterious charm
and inspiration of life on the highway.
From time to time, stray news items
are printed concerning the starting out
of some well-knoWn person upon car
riage journey of some sort. We read
recently, for instance, of how Captain
John d. Phelps of New Jersey, son of
the late William Walter Phelps, had
started on a tour with four horses,
through New York. Canada, Vermont
and other Eastern states; of the party
of Princeton College alumni who are
to occupy the summer in drive with
covered wagon. from Chicago to the
Rocky mountains; of the Massachu-
sets college professor who spends the
summer months lecturing on the
Passion Play" touring about New
England in "camp-house" on wheels.
the caravan being drawn by pair of
wiry ponies. Accompanied by his wife
and daughter, the ingenious professor
moves his home and family with him
and combines recreation with instruc-
ton and profit. Then, there are the
theological students who set out in
gospel wagons and test their ora
torical and spiritual prowess upon the
public at large.
To those who may be interested, es
pecially those already preparing for
horse and carriage journeyings, sug-
gestions are offered upon details that.
disregarded. may bring the tour TO a
speedy and harassing end. but II
needed may assist in causing you TO
remember your summer in the buggy
as one of your most beneficial ana
pleasurable vacations.
| shall assume that the majority OF
those who might be disposed to engage
in the undertaking will do so actuated
by something of the spirit that char
acterized my mother, Mrs. Abbie Scates
Ames. and myself. when We set out
upon our drive of 400 miles. We had
made up our minds that the plan was
Il, nf
recreation, sightseeing and gaining
new and refreshing information con-
corning the republic in which we lived.
We started with the sober intention OF
putting our horse aboard the cars
whenever we should wish to give up
the Journey. We got on the road; and
suffice it to say we kept driving ahead.
until in nine weeks, from the start in
Illinois in July, our faithful mare
Kit" had carried us across Illinois,
parts of southern Michigan and north
ern Indiana, Ohio. New York, Vermont
and New Hampshire to Boston; with
out her having been sick a day or haV-
ing lost more than sixty pounds OF
flesh. The entire cost of the expedition
was $3.50.
The most important feature of the
tour is the horse. The horse for tour
ing must be endowed with certain in
dspensable qualities. Toughness is the
prime requisite. Beauty, symmetry
and speed are of secondary importance.
You want horse that can take
steady. even measure of work without
fretting or fussing. and grimly main
tain that allotted measure day after
day; for right here it may as we'll be
stated that you will not average more
than twenty-five to thirty miles day.
The horse cannot stand more than
The acquaintance who may glibly tell
you of drives of seventy to eighty miles
in one day have not done much long
distance touring. depend upon it. 1t
should be recalled that. day in and day
out for some weeks the animal will be
pulling uphill and down, over scorch-
ing sands and waXy boys, some four
to six hundred pounds of wagon, three
hundred to three hundred and fifty
pounds of humanity, and from fifty to
one hundred pounds of baggage. The
horse, to endure satisfactorily long.
hard tour, will require just as much
attention, just as much kindly care and
consideration, as though it were
human being that We're drawing the
conveyance. For your own satisfac-
ton and comfort, you will find that it
is preferable to follow the plan of
driving from. say seven o'clock in the
morning to 1870. Then, you will want
to halt under the branches of some
shady tree or hedge; and while the
horse is stripped of the harness and
crops the grass, later is watered and
has his priced allotment of oats t3l2
quarts are enough) you can Toll and
loaf.
You have your luncheon. Perhaps
you are where there is fine stretch of
scenery to enlist your enthusiasm, or,
mayhap. you'll dream over a novel. AT
about three o'clock you'll be on the
way again. BY six or seven you will
begin to feel like having a good supper
and stopping for the night. Twenty
five or thirty miles Of the incessant jar
of the carriage will have been all you
care to undergo. This is the real
picture of what may be called the
routine of the tour.
The ideal horse for touring should
have a broad, deep chest and TANKS
and legs showing ridges and coils of
muscle and sinew rather than lines of
H.,