I was dealing in horses, more or less, from 1861 to 1863 (as I had been before and long after), and many was the magnificent horse I saw led out by the farmer for the government, at a minimum price, when, previous to 1861, $400, $500, and even $600 was refused for the same animals.  Horses that would prove a headlight to any gentleman’s coach in the city, and others that would trot off fourteen to sixteen miles an hour on the road as easy as they would eat their oats, went into the cavalry or artillery or to baggage trains.  What were left for recuperation at the close of the war were mongrels from Canada or the Indian and wild lands of the West, and such other lazy brutes as our good farmers would not impose upon the government with or later were condemned by the army buyers.  These were largely of the Abdallah type of horse, noted for coarseness, homeliness, also soft and lazy constitutions.  No one disputes the brute homeliness of the Abdallah horse, and in this the old and trite saying of “Like begets like” is exemplified in descendants, with which our country is flooded.  The speed element of which we boast was left in our mares of Arabian blood through Clay and Morgan, but was so limited in numbers as to be an apology for our present time standard in the breeding of fancy horses.  Knowing that Abdallah blood produced no speed, and being largely ignorant as to the breeding of our mares, which were greatly scattered over the land after the war, some kind of a guess had to be made as to the possibility of the colts we were breeding, hence the time standard fallacy.  But it has ruined enough men, and gone far enough.

Upon Lieutenant Robertson’s proposition, a turn can be made, and a solid base for blood with breeding of all American horses can be demanded by the government for the country’s good.

From the earliest history of man, as a people increased in wealth, they gave attention to mental culture with refinement; following which the horse was cultivated to a high blood standard with national pride.  From the Egyptians, the Moors, the Romans, and Britons to France, Russia, and Prussia we look, finding the horse by each nation had been a national pride—­each nation resorting to the same primitive blood from which to create its type, and that primitive was the Arabian.  Scientists have theorized, men have written, and boys have imagined in print, as to some other than the Arabian from which to create a type of horse, and yet through all ages we find that Arabian has been the one stepping stone for each advanced nation upon which blood to build its national horse.

Scientists have reasoned and explored, trying to prove to the contrary, but what have they proved?  The Arabian horse still remains the fact.

The lion, the tiger, the leopard, still remain the same, as does the ass and the zebra.  As God created and man named them, with all animal life, subject to the will of man, so do they all continue to remain and reproduce, each true to its type, free from imperfections or disease; also the same in vegetable and mineral life.  In animal life, the build, form, color, size, and instincts remain the same, true to its blood from the first, and yet all was created for man through which to amuse him and make him work.