CART HORSES. 217 



which would be natural in such an animal as I have 

 imagined, but which was never seen in the shire 

 horses. 



But, however this may be, the shire horse is a 

 beast of great antiquity, though much improved dur- 

 ing the past two centuries. In fact, there are some 

 living members of the breed whose pedigrees can be 

 traced back for at least one hundred and fifty years, 

 and this is more than can be said of any other exist- 

 ing cart horse family. One reason for the improve- 

 ment is a mechanical discovery as to the muscular 

 action of the cart horse. It used to be thought that 

 he did his work by perpetually tumbling against his 

 collar, as it were, thus bringing his weight to bear, 

 and consequently that his fore quarters ought to be as 

 heavy as possible ; it was no harm if his shoulder 

 bone were straight, and as for his hind quarters it 

 did not matter much what they were. But this notion 

 has been exploded, and it is now perceived that a 

 cart horse pulls by muscle rather than by weight, and 

 more by the muscles of his hind quarters and legs 

 than by those of his fore quarters. The structure of 

 a cart horse should therefore bear a general resem- 

 blance to that of a racer or trotter, except that his 

 legs should be shorter, his shoulder less oblique, and 

 his rump not higher than the withers. 



The Saturday Eeview once made some excellent 

 observations on this subject, as follows : " There are 

 many points, indeed, which good horses of nearly all 

 breeds share in common. For instance, the following 

 descriptions, taken at random from different news- 

 papers : he is ' thick, level, and strong ' ; he ' stands 

 on short, well formed limbs, and, like several good 



