INTRODUCT ION.


   IN- the spring of 18X7, I began the preparation of a series of
articles on The Trotting Stallions, for publication in the Xetion/
Le-.Stock. urnl,l of Chicago. The scope and design of the sanie,
at first limited, was enlargell (luring the progress of the chapters
which extended through the year. The consideration which those
articles received from the readers of that and other journals which in
part copied them, was gratifying to me, atid the numerous letters and
words of commendation received from every part of this country and
beyond the Atlantic, have gone far toward inducing me to put the
treatise thus imperfectly outlined into more complete and permanent
fornu.
  My stuidy of the Trotting Horse has extended through a period of
several years, and I have not studied the subject as most editors of
journals devoted to kindred subjects have usually done, with no actual
contact with the aninials-being maimly a matter of theory on paper.
On the contrary, while I have also been closely engaged in profes-
sional jiursuits. I have been more or less concerned with agricultural
enterprises and affairs alnmost continuously for the past twenty years,
and for the past tell years have been a horse breeder, having bred in
the States of Connecticut. New York, Ohio. Kentiieky and Wisconsin,
in addition to the ket-pinig of a large list at honme most of the time.
I speak not of myi suevesses--thmev have been maiiilv for the benefit
of others, as I thinik a man who rinis two professions at the same time,
as I have done, will not le likely to advance his own interests at
either; buit for all this. my opportunities for studying horses have been
somethiiig of whioh I may speak.
  While I have known most of the gentlemen who are breeders of
horses iii different parts of the country. and have read the greater
part of the current horse literature for the past tell years, I must still
be allowed to say that I have learned more from the horses themselves
than from all other sources. I have re(ived nIyl best lessotis from themim,
and have learmied the imlpnortance and value of studying the animals, and
in them learning their comuformatiomis, comlp)sitions and blood traits.
Had I never made the animals a study in all their essential parts, [
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