I was now better prepared than ever before to understand just what I needed and all that I needed to complete my outfit for the Brush. My experience in horseback-riding had been particularly instructive on this subject. After somewhat extended but fruitless search and inquiry for a horse, such as I needed in that vicinity, I took steamer for a great horse-market a hundred and fifty miles distant. Here I found great droves of horses, in vast stables, attended by scores of jockeys, all wide awake and eager to show me the very article that I wanted. I went from stable to stable, looked at a good many, heard the most satisfactory statements from their voluble owners in regard to the qualities of those that were brought out and submitted to my special inspection, mounted some of them and rode a short distance to test their qualities, but did not purchase. Indeed, I became entirely satisfied that I was not as verdant in regard to horse-flesh as from my pale looks and clerical appearance they generally took me to be. Though a clergyman, and the son of a clergyman, my father had penetrated the wilderness of Western New York, purchased a farm, and erected his log-cabin west of the Genesee River in 1807, when there was but a single log-house where Rochester now stands. Hence, from my childhood I had enjoyed the invaluable advantages of farm-life and labors. I had ridden colts, driven and worked horses, and learned what is hardly worth less in the future battle of life than all that is acquired in college and professional schools.