426 MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY. 



physical force. For ordinary purposes tliey should not be 

 above sixteen hands high, with a light, well-shaped head 

 and neck, short pricked ears, and brisk, sparkling eyes ; the 

 nostrils large and wide, to allow freedom in breathing ; 

 their chests should be full and deep, with large, strong, 

 muscular shoulders, but rather lower in front than other- 

 wise ; that is, with a large and round rump, which should be 

 higher than the forehand ; the tail firm, strong, and well 

 furnished with hair ; the back straight and tolerably long, 

 but not too much so, as that is found to impair the general 

 strength of the animal ; the legs should be rather long, flat, 

 and broad ; the fillets large and swelling, the joints closel}' 

 knit ; they should stand wide on all their legs, the hind- 

 quarters being wider than the fore. 



Large horses are better adapted for waggons, and have 

 frequently been bred seventeen hands high, and even more, 

 with elevated forehands^ and deep counters. The great 

 object in the breeding of draught-horses is to increase 

 strength, activity, and power ; to remove weight as much as 

 possible, and procure them of the height of sixteen hands 

 for general utility. Indeed it has been proved that horses 

 of this size have performed feats of strength of greater 

 magnitude than those of elephantine proportions. I re- 

 member to have seen a black cart-horse, of sixteen hands, 

 draw thirty-six hundred weight of baggage, from Glasgow to 

 Stirling, a distance of twenty-seven miles, in about eleven 

 hours. Instances have been known where a single horse 

 has drawn a weight of three tons for a short distance. In 

 former times, when burdens were removed from one locality 

 to another by horses without carts, the pack-horses of York- 

 shire were accustomed to carry the weight of four hundred 

 and twenty pounds over the old roads, which usually tra- 

 versed high and precipitous hills. 



