American Agriculture [pp. 249-264]

THE PRINCE T0N RE VIEW.
of studying the agricultural capabilities of the infinite varieties
of soil subject to this climate remained to be done within the
region then occupied; while with every successive extension of
the frontier of settlement the same work has had to be done for
the new fields brought under cultivation. To say with what
quick-wittedness and openness of vision, what intellectual audacity yet strong common-sense, what variety of resource and
facility of expedients, what persistency yet pliancy, the American farmer has met this demand of the situation would sound
like extravagant panegyric. No other agricultural population
of the globe could have encountered such emergencies without
suffering tenfold the degree of failure, loss, and distress which
has attended the westward movement of our population during
the past one hundred years.
Fourth. In asking what has been done biologically to promote American agriculture, we have reference to the application
of the laws of vegetable and animal reproduction, as discovered
by study and experiment, to the development of new varieties
of plants and of animals, or to the perfection of individuals of
existing varieties. In this department of effort the success of
the American farmer has been truly wonderful, and our agriculture has profited by it in a degree which it would be difficult
to overestimate. A few examples will suffice for our present
occasion.
Receiving the running horse from England, we have so improved the strain that for the two years past, notwithstanding
the unlimited expenditure upon racing studs in England, notwithstanding that English national pride is so much bound up
in racing successes, and notwithstanding the grave disadvantages which attend the exportation of costly animals and their
trial under the conditions of a strange climate, the honors of the
British turf have been gathered, in a degree almost unknown in
the history of British racing, by three American horses; and
while Iroquois was last summer winning his unprecedented
series of victories, two if not three American three-year-olds,
generally believed to be better than Iroquois, were contesting
the primacy at home.
The trotting horse we have created, certainly the most useful variety of the equine species, and we have improved that
256