FARM ANIMALS 11 



tended for speed is a native of higher ground 

 well drained and without an excess of moisture. 

 Speed and strength of horses as well as the legs 

 and bones are to a considerable extent influenced 

 by the soil conditions since lime and various 

 other minerals are known to be necessary in the 

 proper nutrition of all animals. Where these 

 mineral matters are absent from the soil they 

 naturally exist in a low percentage in the plants 

 grown on such soils and various bone diseases 

 may result in horses and other domestic animals 

 pastured on such grasses. At any rate it is 

 impossible to secure the proper strength and 

 toughness of bone without having the right 

 geological conditions of the soil. 



BREEDS OF HORSES 



Breeds of horses, like breeds in any other 

 domestic animals, are groups of closely related 

 individuals having a common ancestor and showing 

 a number of characteristic points in common by 

 which they may be classed together and described 

 by a common set of terms. The horse has de- 

 veloped along two common lines, viz. the draft 

 type and the speed horse, and these two types are 

 in turn subdivided into a number of distinct breeds 

 each of which traces its ancestry back in a more 

 or less pure line for many years and some of them 

 for several centuries. The two types of horses 

 from which our modern breeds have descended 

 come from different localities in which the soil 

 conditions were entirely unlike. The modern Thor- 

 oughbred is the latest development of the so-called 

 Oriental horse which developed in various forms 

 in Africa, parts of Asia, Spain, and was finally 



