150 Cross-Breeding in Horses. 



Mr. Humphreys, as affording- successful illustrations of the 

 practice. 



Special reference was made to Mr. Humphreys, Avho, starting 

 with two of Mr. Jonas Webb's best prize Southdown rams, kept 

 steadily to sires of his own stock, occasionally purchasing fresh 

 Hampshire ewes, until in the course of 20 years he had esta- 

 blished a first-rate breed, all of which were descended on one 

 side from Mr. Jonas Webb's Southdowns. This example, as 

 well as that of Mr. Rawlence of Wilton, who now scarcely ranks 

 second to Mr. Humphreys, seems to show that the use of males 

 and females possessing a similar amount of breeding is much 

 more to be depended on than the system pursued by others who 

 cross with- the Sussex when their sheep are getting too strong or 

 coarse, and with the old Hampshire when they are getting too 

 small. 



I now further propose to inquire whether this system, which 

 is so successful with sheep, is one altogether to be condemned 

 with horses ; always assuming that cross-breeding, to be suc- 

 cessful, must be undertaken with a distinct and defined object, 

 and assigning the highest praise and the first rank to those who 

 maintain intact the purity of our best established breeds. 



An opinion is very commonly entertained that there are only 

 two pure breeds of horses in this country (ponies excepted), 

 viz., the thorough-bred and the heavy cart-horse, — all the rest 

 being but modifications of these races in various degrees. It is, 

 however, probable, that long before either of these extremes 

 were known among us there existed a native breed of a very 

 useful kind, pure examples of which are now scarcely to be met 

 with. The ^;ocA-horse with his drooping hind-quarters, good 

 shoulders, strong fore-legs, and sure action, existed in Eng- 

 land for centuries before the Barb and the Arab were imported 

 for the chase or the race-course by the Stuarts, or the intro- 

 duction of carriages had led to the use of Flanders mares 

 brought from the neighbouring continent ; these heavy horses, 

 with their high action, slow but sure and staunch, being natu- 

 rally much prized for helping the ponderous coach out of 

 the deep ruts of the high roads or along the miry lanes. The 

 heaviest of the race were greatly in demand not only for tilling 

 the strong lands but for drawing the cumbrous road-waggon 

 before even the six-mile-an-hour luggage-van was introduced as 

 a novelty and an innovation. I have before me one of Morland's 

 striking sketches which reminds me forcibly of my boyish days, 

 when the slow but sure approach of one of these ponderous 

 vehicles with its eight or twelve ton load, heralded perhaps by a 

 cloud of dust ever stirred up by the heavy feet of the ten or 

 twelve massive animals that moved it onward at the rate of some 



