OF FARRIERY. 



37b 



luxunaut diet, but it did not reach more than 

 fifteen hands high at the expiration of the 

 third year, 



THE ilUSH HORSE. 



In some of the rich grazing counties, as 

 Meath and Roscommon, a large long blood 

 Horse is reared of considerable value, but he 

 seldom has the elegance of the English Horse ; 

 he is larger headed, more leggy, ragged- 

 hipped, angular, yet with great power in the 

 quarters, much depth beneath the knee, stout 

 and hardy, full of fire and courage, and the 

 best leaper in the world. 



The Irish Horse is generally smaller than 

 the English. He is stunted in his growth, for 

 the poverty and custom of the country have 

 imposed upon him much hard work, at a time 

 when he is unfit for labour of any kind. For 

 this reason, too, the Irish Horse is deficient in 

 speed. There is, hov> ever, another explana- 

 tion of this. The Irish thorough-bred Horse 

 is not equal to the English. He is compara- 

 tively a weedy, leggy, worthless animal, and 

 very little of him enters into the composition 

 of the hunter or the hackney. 



For leaping the Irish Horse is unrivalled. 

 It is not, however, the leaping of the English 

 Horse, striding as it were over a low fence, 

 and stretched at his full length over a higher 

 one ; it is the proper jump of the deer, beauti- 

 ful to look at, difficult to sit, and both in 

 height and extent, unequalled by the English 

 Horse. Much of this difference of leaping in 

 the two countries, no doubt, depends on the 

 iraming, and on the nature of the fences in 

 Ireland, there being so many inclosures with 

 stone walls. 



There are very few Horses in the agricultu- 

 ral districts of Ireland, exclusively devoted to 



draught. The minute division of the farms 

 renders it impossible for them to be kept. 

 The occupier even of a tolerable sized Irish 

 farm, wants a Horse that shall carry him to 

 market, and draw his small car, and perform 

 every kind of drudgery — a Horse of all work ; 

 therefore the thorough draught-horse, whether 

 Leicestershire or Suffolk, is rarely found in 

 Ireland. 



If we look to the commeixe of Ireland, there 

 are few stage waggons, or drays with im- 

 mense cattle belonging to them, but almost 

 every thing is done by one-horse carts. In 

 the North of Ireland, some stout Horses are 

 employed in the carriage of linen, but the 

 majority of the garrons used in agriculture or 

 commercial pursuits are miserable and half- 

 starved animals. 



There is a native breed in Ulster, hardy, 

 and sure-footed, but with little pretension to 

 beauty or speed. 



THE WILD HOKShS OF SOUTH AMEKICA 



All travellers, who have crossed the plains 

 extending from the shores of La Plata to 

 Patagonia, have spoken of numerous droves of 

 wild Horses. Some aflfirm that they have 

 seen ten thousand in one troop. They appear 

 to be under the command of a leader, the 

 strongest and boldest of the herd, and whom 

 they implicitly obey. A secret instinct teaches 

 them that their safety consists in their union, 

 and in a principle of subordination. The lion, 

 the tiger, and the leopard, are their principal 

 enemies. At some signal, intelligible to them 

 all, they either close into a dense mass, and 

 trample their enemy to death ; or, placing 

 the mares and foals in the centre, they form 

 themselves into a circle and welcome him with 

 their heels. In the attack, their leader is the 

 5 B 



