For suggestions, good counsel, and valuable information I am indebted to many. Among them I must mention here R. W. Rives, Esq.; Frank K. Sturgis, Esq.; Professor Henry F. Osborn, of the Natural History Museum; William Pollock, Esq.; Theodore Frelinghuysen, Esq., Captain Pirie, and Fownes of London; Howlett père of Paris, and his son Morris Howlett, now of New York; T. Suffern Tailer, Esq., late president of the New York Tandem Club; and others. They will, I trust, forgive my errors, and take to themselves, as they deserve to do, the credit for such value as this small volume has, in adding to the comfort of drivers and the welfare of the horse.
DRIVING
CHAPTER I
ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE HORSE
In dealing with the horse as a source of national income, or as an opportunity for sport and pleasure, there is little to be taught Americans along the lines of harness-making, carriage-building, and other mechanical appliances for the comfort and best use of the animal. But both owners of horses and their care-takers are often lamentably ignorant of the general history of the horse.
If one is to get most value out of the horse on the farm, as a draught animal in city streets, or on the road, in harness or under saddle, some knowledge of his past history and present value cannot be out of place. The harness, the bit, the vehicle, may be right, but the head, hands, heart, and temper of the coachman may be wrong. To know how the horse came to be what he is, and to know something of the kind of a machine that he now is, will do much to explain his vagaries, and even more to make his owner and user more patient, more gentle, and more intelligent in handling him.
You do not expect poetry from a blacksmith, nor a fourteen-inch forearm on a poet. You deal with men the more comfortably the more you know of their antecedents and training. The same is even more true of this subject of horses. It is not necessary that a man should be an experienced navigator or an off-shore sailor to enjoy a yacht; but on the other hand there is no question but that the man who knows most of these matters gets the most enjoyment out of his boat. It is not necessary to write books in order to enjoy them; but the practice of writing adds an hundred fold to the enjoyment of other men's books.
It is not necessary that a man should be an accomplished palæontologist, and an experienced veterinary, in order that he may take pleasure in his stable; but some knowledge of these matters adds greatly to one's understanding of the proper treatment of horses, and greatly, too, to one's stock of patience in dealing with their eccentricities and obstinacies. "Mad men and mad horses never will agree together."