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CHAPTER I.

enter into an argument at this day of the nineteenth century, to show that the horse stock of any country is a material item in the account of the national wealth, strength and greatness, would be to admit the arguer himself an ass, or at least to show that he believed himself to be addressing an audience of asses. In no country in the world, perhaps, is such an argument less needed than in our own, where, certainly, the keeping of horses for the purposes of pleasure as well as of utility is more largely disseminated among persons of all classes than in any other, and where the desire and ability both to keep and breed horses of a high grade is daily gaining ground, both in town and country. Among farmers the desire to raise valuable stock is, at least, increasing proportionally to the increase of the profit to be derived from them, which is (17)