THE SHIRE. 179 



another question. Certain it is that none of the 

 other breeds of live stock developed in England 

 owes its scale to any extraneous blood. It 

 would be strange indeed if the Shire alone of 

 all the British breeds should owe his size to an 

 alien cross. In 'the rich fen lands of Lincoln 

 and -Cambridge as great bulk may be produced 

 as on any other spot in the world. There is no 

 way of proving it, of course, but reasoning by 

 analogy it is altogether probable that a breed 

 of drafters would have been developed on these 

 fen lands quite as large as the present Shire if 

 there never had been a Flemish horse at all. 

 Be this as it may, the Shire is just what the 

 Englishman wants him to be. He is markedly 

 different, as already pointed out, from any of 

 the other offshoots of the parent stock. 



From the American angle it is hard to say 

 why the English breeders have developed the 

 type just as they have. They have certainly 

 not developed it in accordance with American 

 preferences. Characteristic of the present-day 

 Shire are great bulk, strong bone, a tremendous 

 amount of hair about the legs, far too much 

 white and in many instances a paucity of neck 

 that to an American eye approaches deformity. 

 A tendency to heaviness in the head is also no- 

 ticeable, but whether this is actually due to lack 

 of proportion, or whether it merely seems to be 

 on account of our liking for a well risen crest, 

 it is hard to say. Nor does it matter. The 



