BREEDS OF HORSES FOR THE FARM. 



horse of excellent quality followed, and the cross resulted in produe 

 the now celebrated Percheron. 



The native race referred to is thought by some to have been the old 

 war horse of the Normans heavy, bony and slow good for cavalry use 

 during the days of chivalry, when thecarrying of a knight and his arm 

 required an animal of great strength and powers of endura 



Others think that it was a stock of horses then peculiar to Brittany and 



for draft rather than for war. 



The old Norman has been described as being capable of carrying great 

 burdens at a reasonable rate of speed; to have been large, compact, mus- 

 cular, and possessing the greatest endurance. 



The points of the Percheron may be stated as follows : 

 The head is short; the brow is broad, and has that hollow of profile be- 

 tween the eyes and nostrils sometimes known as the dish-face ; but th- 

 head in general is not heavier than seems in keeping with the general 

 massiveness of the frame ; the neck is long, well-arched and heavy, but, 

 like the head, not disproportioned to the general bulk. The back is short ; 

 they are well ribbed up and round barrelled ; their legs are particularly 

 1 1 from the knees and hocks downward ; they are heavily haired, but 

 have not such shaggy fetlocks and feet as this would seem to indicate ; 

 their sinews are iron-like ; and their feet arc hard, sound, apparently in- 

 sensible to disease. In height, they are from fourteen and a half to fif- 

 teen and a half hands, the latter being rather more than the average. Gra\ 

 ie characteristic, almost the only, colour. 



hard work on ordinary fare the Percheron is unequalled : and his 

 iiid endurance are wonderful. He will keep his condition where 

 horse would die of hard labour and neglect. Though full of spirit, 

 unflinching under even painful effort, he is yet docile. 



vn Horse. This horse, when pure, is entitled to be consid- 

 He can lay no claim, of course, to being regarded as 

 -, no more than the Norman, Pereheron or the English thor- 

 hut his eharart.-risties are 80 marked as to render him worthy 



parately and noticed with some minuten 



pposed t. l>e deseended from the Norman- Kivneh horse, hrou^ht 

 by the pioneers of Canada ; but ho\v cross. >d though he U gvidei 



lit of across), it. is impossible to say. In BOme particulars, he so 

 i resembles tin- old horse of Normandy n> to seem tin- unmi^tak;. 

 nt of that stock ; VfhereM in others he is so unlike him as to in- 

 at th.- cros must have be<>n with a very strongly marked animal. 

 ' rs of trnn-mi^sion. 



