Year: 1879

school marms They were bright, intelligent,
sef-reliant and enterprising young women, and
carried their New England notions with them.
There was some kind Of bargain, either ex-
pressed or implied, that they were to teach such
a length OF time, but most, II not all Of them,
begged to be excused from carrying out the bar
gain TO the letter and abandoned educational for
domestic and household affairs. In their new
| lations they were just as much needed and Just
| as valuable as In the school-room. As wives and
mothers they exerted strong influence in mould


ing social and religious life, and while they lost
many OF their distinctive locasms they held fast
to the great truths they had been taught under
the shadow Of your mountains. Since then the
years have passed away, ] do not care to think
how many, but nearly all Of Governor SHADES
school marms who are still living are now
grandmothers.


"F From this knowledge Of the practical and
thrifty character Of your people, which acquired
from your representatives long ago, think you
will excuse me II fail to captivate and please
the fancy with pictures OF the beautiful II only
succeed In impressng upon your minds some
thing that may be classed with the useful This
| exhibition IL great school In which the lesson
is taught chiefly by comparison. No difference
whether we are examining pig or pumpkin, or
whether II be n horse hen, the most stupid
and unapprecative can learn something, II he
will, by comparing 1t with something else. The
difficulty is that we fail TO study the lessons and
put them in practice at home, or we permit our
prejudices to control our Judgment and action
II we could only conquer our prejudces and learn
/ to look at things as they are, the highway OF
progress would be plain, and in every relation Of
| life we would grow better wiser and happier
In what may have to say to you to-day am
fully conscious Of the prejudices ] will have to
encounter and the tenacity with which farmers
As class, adhere to them.


at is unfortunate that we do not have more
Of that class Of men who are generally and often
times with some degree of dsdain designated as
fancy farmers. By the phrase fancy farmers ,
we mean that class Of men who have been sue
cessful in mercantile or manufacturing pursuits,
and when they have got enough Of this world :
| goods they retire to a farm as a pleasant means
of spending their surplus. This class of farmers,
to be sure, make many mistakes, but they are
| mistakes from which the farmer could learn many
valuable lesson by avoiding their failures and
profting by their successes. We may sneer at
fancy farmers and fancy farming, but, after all,
they have been pioneers in all the great forward
steps in agricultural advancement


81 know that you have good grazing country,
for the fame Of your horses and your sheep has
gone out into every land With the exceptions
of some favored localities suppose you find the
products of your pastures and your meadows the
most profitable in reckoning up the returns of the
year. will therefore, address myself especially
to the breeding interests. But, as Vermont OF all
har Al.
her horses than any of her other products, it is
eminently fitting in both audience and speaker,
that we should give the horse the most promin-
ent place in what have to say, trusting that the
illustrations drawn from him may serve as ap-
plicabe in principle to all our domestic animals.


The speaker deprecated the fact that horse trot-
ting, unfortunately, had fallen in great measure
into the hands OF gamblers, who were largely
aided by the owners of horses. The pool-box is
far worse than the faro-bank, and is designed
especially to entrap the inexperienced and the
young. Your son is interested in one Of the
horses and he believes he will win. He sees a
man of his acquaintance buying pool, and with
the few dollars in his pocket he buys one himself
on his favorite horse. Thus your son becomes a
gambler, and through the process we are becom-
ing nation Of gamblers. The pool-box at the
trotting meetings, in the past ten years, has
| made more gamblers than all the faro-banks in
the world could have made in a hundred years.
| "With this terrible evil staring you in the face
and with consciousness that it is sending its roots
down into the very vitals of society and devasta-
ting many household, it is natural you should
ask how you are to free yourselves from it. Go
to your legislature and demand the enactment OF
law that will efTectuay prohibit all pool-selng
and gambling of every kind upon every fair
ground and trotting-course in the state and then
see that the law is executed. All that is needed
to execute such law is for one or two resolute
citizens at each point where trottng meetings are
held to call the attention Of the proper officer to
it. You cannot prevent two men from betting
privately, II they choose to bet, but you can stop
the croaking mouth of the auctioner and seize any
gambling implements that may be exposed to
tempt the unwary


with the trotting turf manipulated and con-
trolled by gamblers the trottng horse depreciate.
in value. 1t ceases to be reputable to own and
drive fine horse even If his master never went
inside OF a trotting-course. The number of horse:
that the breeders sell for the trotting turf is a
mere bagatele, the great market is to the bust.
ness men of our large cities To keep this market
open, the trotting horse must not be disreputable
and to own and drive him on the road must no,
be a cause of suspicion. You have now in very
brief and imperfect form the moral and materia
aspects OF the question before you either of which
should be of sufficient weight to secure YOU
hearty. prompt and united action.


Through all the years that have devoted to
the study of the horse, his history and the meth
DDS Of his breeding, there is no single family
about which have taken deeper interest thar
your famous Morgan family. In some of hi,
qualities he has proven himself the most desira
bic horse on the face of the earth. At one time
he was the most popular horse on this continent
and from the immense numbers you sold to til,
West and South, at great prices, he should have
made you all rich. Now, unfortunately, he i,
out OF fashion and nobody wants him. Here II
an important lesson in breeding, the Morgani
were not a breed, but family with many fam
lily characteristics, it is true, but not dxed in tina
type through long series OF generations. wher
he was brought in contact with other types h,
was not able to impress himself. This was no
the fault OF the horse but the fault of his maste
in not knowing how to breed him and in expect
ing too much OF him. When taken to the ricl
prairies of the West and South his progeny los
| theh NoIhohN CnhrtCtcIlstlOS, III u great
cases, the very first generation. How much o
this disappointment and failure might be attrib
uted to the great numbers OF fraudulent pedigree
that your honest % Vermont dealers put upoi
their customers, can never be ascertained. Th
rule was that there were frauds OF greater or les
importance in nine-tenths OF them. Not conten
with the generally received account of the origil
! of the first Morgan horse, went over the Who'll


question carefully several years ago and arrive'
| at a reasonable assurance that Linsey, in hi
book, could be safely accepted This version ha
stood till the last few months, when gentleman
! in Springfield, Massachusetts, adduced such al
array of facts and dates as to disprove the who'll
: of 1t. This was oyerthrcwing my own work, bu
the facts were unanswerable, and no differenc
whose work 1t was, This is not the place to ente


into the details OF this discovery, but suffice 1t u
say the original Morgan horse was bred in Wes
' Springfield, Massachusetts, and nothing whateve
is known of the blood Of either his sire or hi
dam. The story that he was Canadian neve
had even the shadow OF probability about 1t
0 There have been scores Of horses without an,
known families or genealogy, that proved them
selves truly great in their ability to impress thei
own characteristics on their offspring with won