3798. HORSES, Arabian.—
The culture
of wheat by enlarging our[Virginia's] pasture,
will render the Arabian horse an article of
very considerable profit. Experience has shown
that ours is the particular climate of America
where he may be raised without degeneracy.
Southwardly the heat of the sun occasions a
deficiency of pasture, and northwardly the
winters are too cold for the short and fine hair,
the particular sensibility and constitution of
that race. Animals transplanted into unfriendly
climates, either change their nature and acquire
new senses against the new difficulties in
which they are placed, or they multiply
poorly
and become extinct. * * * Their patience
of heat without injury, their superior wind, fit
them better in this and the more southern climate
even for the drudgeries of the plough and
wagon. Northwardly they will become an object only to persons of taste and fortune, for
the saddle and light carriages.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 408.
Ford ed., iii, 272.
(1782)
