PLATE II.—DEVELOPMENT OF HORSE'S FOOT FROM FIVE TOES TO ONE
In forty years we have increased from 33,000,000 to 82,000,000 in population; from $174,000,000 to $873,000,000 in agricultural products exported; from 2,000,000 to 6,000,000 farms; from $8,500,000,000 to $22,000,000,000 total value of farm property; from $1,500,000,000 to $4,500,000,000 annual value of farm products; from $1,250,000,000 to $2,500,000,000 total value of farm animals, and from $17,000,000,000 to $100,000,000,000 total national wealth. In this progress the horse has played a very large part, and, contrary to the general and ignorant opinion, the horse still maintains his place as the most valuable piece of all-round useful machinery in the world.
One has merely to note the way in which this valuable partner of our national prosperity is stabled, groomed, harnessed, and handled to excuse the writing of any number of books, and the persistent hammering away upon this subject. Sport and athletics are serious subjects because they are so vitally important to the physical comfort of man; and this branch of sport which deals with the horse, is of surprisingly vital interest to the nation when one comes to investigate it.
The cruelty, impatience, and ignorance displayed by the great majority of horse-steerers—they are nothing more nor less than that—are apparent wherever we turn. Not only the shockheaded MicMac who tools the grocery wagon about our crowded streets; not only the Sunday boy who indulges his Rowena in an hebdomadal picnic on wheels; but the hundreds of so-called coachmen who drive the high-priced horses of their masters in reins, bits, head-stalls, and collars fitted without discrimination upon any horse that comes into the stable,—all alike are in dire need of learning how to make the most of their opportunities.
It is not to be expected that every man who owns, or handles, a horse should be a veterinary, but the elementary principles of harnessing and bitting a horse so that he can do his work comfortably ought to be required of every one who, either for his own pleasure, or for hire, has anything to do with horses. Such an one ought to know how he came to have his present teeth and legs, his present mouth and small stomach, which reveals at once the secret of many of his weaknesses and their proper care. Not to know, or to care to know, any of these things is to lessen the value of your horses as work-horses very materially, and to deprive yourself of the best part of the pleasure of dealing with your horses, if you have them and handle them merely for sport.
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