254 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



ENGLISH SHIRE OR CART HORSES. 



No point in equine history is better estab- 

 lished than is the fact that to the regions bor- 

 dering on the Western coast of Europe, once 

 known as Normandy and Flanders, the world 

 is indebted for the basis of its various breeds of 

 draft horses. Flanders especially was famed, 

 away back in the middle ages, for its famous 

 breed of Black horses; and this race appears to 

 have been the prevailing one throughout tne 

 north of ancient Gaul and of Germany, from 

 the mouth of the Rhine eastward, and Prof. 

 Low thinks "inhabited in the wild state the 

 vast region of marsh and forest which stretched 

 all through Europe, eastward, to the Euxine 

 sea." It was from this source that the rulers 

 of Great Britain drew in large numbers for the 

 purpose of increasing the size of the horses of 

 the Island. How or when this breed originated 

 is a subject upon which history throws no light; 

 but as early as the eleventh century they were 

 largely imported into England, and royal edicts 

 and regulations were repeatedly issued for the 

 purpose of encouraging the use of the large 

 stallions of this breed. King John imported at 

 one time 100 choice stallions from Flanders, 

 Edward II followed in the same course, and it 

 would seem that in the time of Henry VIII these 

 Flemish horses were inseparably associated in 

 the British mind with the idea of immense size 



