CHAPTEK V 



CAET-HORSES 



rj^HE sheet-anchor of a farmer in breeding horses is 

 -L undoubtedly the cart-colt, whether it be Shire, or 

 Clydesdale, or Suffolk Punch. In our cities and towns 

 mechanical traction may entirely supersede the horse, but on 

 a farm it can never altogether do so, for there must ever be 

 various jobs in the country which can only be performed by 

 the help of an animal — and at least it is not likely that 

 our farmers will revert to using oxen for draught. 

 The ponderous dray-horse will probably disappear, since 

 heavy vans and brewers' drays are now depending chiefly 

 upon motor traction ; though there may still be a small 

 demand for huge animals, as they are almost indispensable 

 for shunters' work at large railway stations, which they so 

 efficiently perform ; but apart from that there seems little 

 opening for their services. The cart-horse of the future 

 seems likely to be a quick, active animal, that can walk at 

 a good pace, and a pair of which can plough an acre of 

 strong land in a day. 



Though the cart-horse and the blood-horse have un- 

 doubtedly evolved from the same little animal of the Lower 

 Eocene Period, the Hyracotherium, who possessed four toes 

 on each fore-foot, and three on each hind-foot, the cleavage 

 of their ways must have taken place ages ago, and certain 

 characteristic differences have long existed between them. 

 An essential one is the hollow depression in front of the 

 orbit, invariably present in Eastern horses and their 

 descendants for many generations, but ever absent from the 

 coarse breeds of Northern Europe with but one exception 

 to be presently mentioned. Large, too, as the bone of the 



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