120 FIELD AND FERN. 



the winner was to travel in Argyleshire for a season. 

 This grey, with the handsome quarters and fine swing- 

 ing step, was one of the five which were resting from 

 their summer toils at Portsoy. With him were Eclipse, 

 a short-backed black ; Robie Burns, rather the small- 

 est of the lot; Tom of Lincoln; and Inkerman, a well- 

 ribbed brown with a Roman nose, and the first- 

 prize honours at Inverness on his head. Horses are 

 yery cheap about here ; and two very fair ones can 

 be bought for the price of a strong five-year-old yoke 

 ex. On strong land the latter plough best, and we 

 thought how shocked Mr. Atherton would have been 

 if he had seen a Cherry Duke bull at Mr. Wilson's 

 thus earning his daily rations and not as the penalty 

 of over-fatness or sluggishness with a bullock by his 

 side. 



The cause of the decline of cart-horse breeding in 

 the neighbourhood was the high price paid for large- 

 sized ones, when railways became general in the 

 South. Farmers were tempted by the price to part 

 with their best mares and fillies, and the size and 

 stamp have never been recovered. It is the lorry 

 system which keeps up the Clydesdale size so much, 

 as, if they were eighteen-hand Magogs, they would 

 be greedily sought after. The heels and tips enable 

 them to drag such enormous weights ; and in this 

 respect the Edinburgh horses have the advantage over 

 the London ones, who lack them, and are all shod 

 on the late Professor Coleman's principle, that the 

 pressure on the frog was essential to the health of 



