218 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



despised a trotter and preferred a well-rounded, broad-backed, 

 galloping or ambling animal. 



The horse of Art, from the earliest Egyptian and Assyrian sculp- 

 tures down to the present century, was not a swift horse, like 

 either the modern runner or trotter. However much the individ- 

 ual animals differed, or even the breeds differ, the most prized 

 animals as a whole were strong rather than swift, heavy for their 

 height, with heavy necks, broad chests, and the well-rounded but- 

 tocks we are all famihar with in the horses of art all down the 

 ages, and which most artists still like to put in pictures or statues, 

 but which we see in use chiefly hauling drays or express wagons. 

 In that most popular of horse pictures, found in so many houses 

 in the land, representing " Sheridan's Ride," doubtless made by an 

 admirer of Greek Art, we see the gallant General mounted on the 

 broadest of cart horses, going at a rate that would wind him in 

 two miles, and leave him drooping before he was the half of the 

 " twenty miles away." 



The horse is especially susceptible to the influence of surround- 

 ing conditions. When horses become wild and live as wild ani- 

 mals do, they develop naturally into native breeds, as instance the 

 wild horses of South America, the mustangs of Mexico, the wild 

 ponies of the Falkland Islands, and numerous other examples that 

 might be cited. In domestication, surrounded by the various 

 conditions which the artificial life imposes, and in obedience to the 

 varied wants, uses, fashions, and sentiments of society, new breeds 

 are moulded into shape until there is a vast number of breeds in 

 existence differing from each other more widely than do the breeds 

 of any other domestic species except dogs. It is not uncommon 

 to see draft-horses ten and sometimes even twenty times as heavy 

 as some Shetland ponies, and they differ in their endurance, 

 temper, and instincts as much as they do in size and shape. Nearly 

 every region has breeds or at least strains of its own which have 

 originated there, the special characteristics of which are in part 

 owing to climate, soil, food, drink, or other natural conditions, and 

 in part to man's directing care and his selection for particular quali- 

 ties. Man's wants change, and what is of more importance in this 

 connection, fashions change, and old breeds are modified or new 

 ones made to meet the new wants or satisfy the new fashions. The 

 breed of race-horses known as the English Thoroughbred was 

 made in the last century in obedience to special conditions, part 



