SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VII. 501 



chestnut, with white marl^ings. The head usually is of good shape; 

 eyes practically perfect; ears of correct shape and size; neck of fair 

 length, arched and muscular; shoulders sloping so as to insure, along 

 with oblique pasterns of model type, long, free, sprightly, springy 

 action at the walk and trot; body powerful; back fairly good, in some 

 horses of the breed too shallow and long in coupling; croup of ideal 

 type and well muscled; thighs and quarters strong and full of muscle; 

 legs free from meatiness and notable for breadth, development of ten- 

 don, clean, dense bone and quality of fine, silky hair ("feather") which 

 springs from the rear of the back tendons and is conceded to be an 

 indication of quality in the underlying tissues. Special attention has 

 for many years been given by breeders to developing quality and action 

 in their horses, with the result that the Clydesdale is uniformly excel- 

 lent in the former particular and noted throughout the world for his 

 fast, elastic, energetic walking and trotting gait. A fast walking pace 

 is the chief requisite as regards the action of a heavy draft horse and 

 this has always been a marked characteristic of this breed, while 

 improvement is also noticeable of late years in the hoofs, which were 

 often somewhat flat, shallow, and low at the heels, and in the body, 

 which was criticised as somewhat light and lacking in depth. 



Utility. — Next to the draft horses of France, Clydesdales have been 

 imported to this country in the largest numbers and have been most 

 effective in improving our native stock towards draft type. Their 

 utility is dependent upon the combination of weight, quality and activ- 

 ity, and they may everywhere successfully be used for grading-up pur- 

 poses to produce the best quality of heavy draft horses for work on the 

 farm, in the city, and in the pineries. 



THE ENGLISH SHIRE. 



The heavy black stallions of Flanders, used upon the native mares 

 of the Fen counties of England, founded this breed of ponderous, hairy 

 legged draft horses many centuries ago and it still is bred pure and 

 gradually has been improved in many particulars. The black color ' is 

 no longer characteristic of the breed. Its representatives now are 

 mostly bay or brown and they are less coarse and sluggish than was 

 formerly the case. They long have been extensively bred in Leicester- 

 shire. Staffordshire. Derbyshire, Oxfordshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, 

 Cheshire. Nottingham, Northampton. Licolnshire and Cambridgeshire. 

 The last two counties are most extensively engaged in Shire horse breed- 

 ing. Many Shires of very poor quality were imported into the United 

 States in the early days of the business; later on better quality char- 

 acterized the importations; of recent years comparatively few Shires 

 have been imported. The first volume of the stud book of the Shire 

 Horse Society of England was published in 1880. and that of the Ameri- 

 can Shire Horse Association appeared a few years later! 



Characteristics. — The typical Shire horse is of gre?.t weight and 

 power. He is more massive than the Clydesdale but lacks the quality 

 of the latter breed. His body is short, deep, broad, round, the coupl- 

 ing extra strong and close and the thighs and quarters heavily muscled. 



