Of FARRIERY. 



305 



great-grandams were wont to jigbehinrl their 

 burly masters. It would be easy to trace all 

 the variations of the Horse known in this 

 country by the very significant names of 

 " half-bred" from these three sources. Of 

 course we look for them no further back than 

 the first introduction of Arab and Persian 

 blood, and we find them the produce of the 

 stallions of those countries crossed with the 

 English, Norman, and Flanders' mares. Thus 

 from the first descended the old English 

 hunter, shewing all the cross-made, hardy 

 frame work of his dam, the blood-like head 

 and flat sinewy legs of his sire. The roadster 

 from the same sire was the produce of the 

 second class of our native mares. As distinct 

 classes, probably no specimens of either are 

 now to be found, their descendants constitut- 

 ing the endless ramifications of the real 

 cocktails, the machiners, hacks, and all the 

 tag-rag and bobtail, by which the drudgery 

 of town and country is performed. 



CARRIAGE STOCK. 



The Clevelands, and the powerful blood- 

 like carriage stock, bred in Yorkshire, and 

 other northern counties, came from the best of 

 the Norman mares, crossed by the Arab only, 

 the Persian blood being considered less likely 

 to throw stock combining symmetry and sub- 

 stance. 



THE CART BREED. 



The cart breed was the cross between the 

 Norman stallions, and the largest of the 

 Flanders' mares, a race substituted in latter 

 years for the pack-horse (bred probably from 

 our own breed and Norman Horses), when 

 the improvements in roads enabled the adop- 

 Uon of wheel-carriages for the transit of mer- 



chandize to supersede the conveyance by back 

 loads. Thus the aboriginal blood, dwindled, 

 and impoverished by an uninterrupted course 

 of breeding in-and-in, by the introduction of 

 fresh seed, became renovated and invig-orated : 

 the common consequence of such change, 

 whether in animal or vegetable life. 



It speedily became obvious to all who were 

 engaged in breeding cattle of every descrip- 

 tion, that vast advantages resulted from the 

 CHANGE OF BLOOD, and heucc arose the prac- 

 tice of hiring the males of various kinds from 

 distant districts for the season, a custom to 

 which, as much as the improved methods of 

 treatment, we owe the excellence of every 

 species of our live stock. Perhaps, it is hardly 

 necessary to observe, that to the difference of 

 soil, is to be attributed such variation in the 

 latter breed as have now settled into distinci 

 classes. But to return to the foreign blood, 

 whence by mixing it with our, and such as 

 was already domesticated among us, we have 

 derived the most useful sorts of our stock, we 

 find the thorough-bred Horse, purely and es- 

 sentially, an alien. 



THOROUGH'BRED HORSES. 



Taking the middle of Charles the First's 

 reign, as the date of the introduction of the 

 Eastern Horses into this country, it allows us 

 just two centuries for the manufacture of the 

 English thorough-bred breeds, in its form as 

 it is found here, and here only. To preserve 

 it in its purity, Arab and Persian mares were 

 also imported at the same period, their pro- 

 duce then, as now, being consideied and 

 treated purely with reference to the turf, as 

 its ultimate destination. The cross between 

 the Arab stallions and the native mares, was 

 held as the fittest for the field — strensfth, with 

 4 H 



