Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1909-10-08
AMERICAN HORSE
NEWS DEPARTMENT
News Items Pertaining to all
Kinds of Horses are Solicited.
Vermont Morgan Horse Interests.


Time was when the Vermont Morgan
Wed with the Vermont merino sheep as
a favorite product of the Green Noun
tain State in the stock markets of the
world and as source of income for the
farmers of Vermont. For a time the
prestige of the Vermont horse. about
which the poet John G. SAKE sang so
appealingly, fell to an extremely low
ebb, and there appeared to be as much
danger of the final extinction of this
noble animal as of the American bison.
During the past few years, however.
there has been a marked revival of
interest in the Morgan horse. Largely
through the efforts of the late Senator
Redtield Proctor the federal govern
ment established Morgan horse breed
ing establishment in Vermont, and
since the State fair was established on
a new basis President Maxwell Evarts
has devoted his energies to the deve-
opment of the Morgan horse exhibit as
one of the principal features of this
annual festival of the farmer and the
horsebreeder.
The formation at the recent fair of
an association of Morgan horse breed
ers cannot fail to still further promote
the success of the effort to revive the
Morgan horse as popular equine fav-
orite. Prominent breeders from differ
ent parts of the country are interested
IN this movement, and judging from the
progress already made, the Morgan
horse will soon regain the prestige and
position which it formerly held as a
distinctive product of Vermont.
The Union of Manchester, N. H., has
been moved to speak of the Vermont
Morgan horse in terms of appreciation.
1t says that 1.-The Japanese, after the
war with the Russians, erected monu-
ments to the horses that were slain in
that war. In our own country the
great Civil War was prosecuted with
more thought of the men that took part
than of the horses, but the time has
come even with US, when the part
which a particular breed of horses
played in that conflict is considered
worthy of commemoration. No one
Ncan read Mr. Wardwell's account of
the deeds of the First Vermont cav
airy without feeling that the horses, as
well as the men, had much to do with
the achievements of that organization.
1t is surely something worth making
note of, even at this late day, that
when the hard service was over, from
the first year of the war to Appomat-
toX, there were still two hundred of the
original one thousand horses in the
service. The relatively small, nervy,
vigorous Morgan hoSse had made good
in war, as it had long before made good
in the service of the small farmer to
whom one horse meant almost every
thing, from drawing the entire family
to church on Sunday to the hauling of
big loads of hay from the meadow on a
week day. After many years, the
Morgan horse has come to the recog-
|
States government, through its agri-
cultural department, has given the
Morgan horse full recognition, and
now comes the organization of ma
tional Morgan horse association. 1t is
a splendid tribute to breed of horses
that has long since proved its value in
the every day work of the world"
The Springfield Republican says:
MANY reader of the Republican has
owned and valued Morgan horse
small, nervy, vigorous, intelligent and
entirely trustworthy. Hence the or
gapization of national Morgan horse
association is of general interest. The
United States government, through its
az ricultural department, has given full
recognition to the virtues of this breed
of horses, as good in war as in the every
day work of the world.
This tribute is as concise as it is
comprehensive, and it moves the Rut-
land Herald to say: Vermont Morgan
horses were the prototypes of the finest
strain of carriage horses in the world.
1t is one of the strangest things about
the agricul tural history of the State
that breeders and landowners should
have so generally neglected the preser-
walton and reproduction of this type.
The Morgan horse was, and might
speedily become, one of the finest ma
terial assets of the State. A thousand
farmers who are eking out a difficult
existence on poor, rundown and rocky
farms might breed Morgan horses as
easily as they breed Jerseys and tc
greater profit.
A Jersey cow is as delicate as a deer
and more susceptible to illness and