HORSES OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE. 849 



under the saddle his neck projects as well as his head, which gives a 

 certain grace to the gaits. 



" It must not be forgotten, however, that a slightly hollow-backed 

 horse with a narrow chest, and scarcely four years old, will be strong 

 and broad enough at six years old. Proper consideration is not always 

 given to the difference existing between the four-year-old and the five- 

 or six-year-old horse. With the four-year-old horse everything is 

 clumsily bundled up ; his future condition must be guessed at ; he 

 will certainly gain. The six-year-old horse, on the contrary, will 

 remain about the same. Still, the horse and especially the mare six 

 years of age, which have never had anything but grass, are like those 

 of four years old. 



" Whilst confining ourselves to the regular limits of height, we must 

 not class a horse to the centimetre ; our judgment must be founded upon 

 his construction, his ampleness, his expression, his degree of thorough- 

 bred descent, and his gaits. A certain horse of 1.54 metres will make 

 a good cuirassier if he has a strong build ; another of the same height 

 can Qnly make an ordinary dragoon if he possesses a medium develop- 

 ment; another of 1.60 metres is good for nothing if he is leggy, lanky, 

 and weedy. 



" Only the horse which is really worthy of the name should be 

 classed as an officer's horse ; we should not yield to simply apparent 

 qualities which are not backed by strength and endurance. Reasoning 

 thus, it would often happen that the officers' horses would be inferior 

 to the troop horses. 



" The principal centres of production and amelioration in France 

 are Normandy, Brittany, Vendee, Poitou, Limousin, Bigorre, and 

 Morvan, which produce horses suitable for the saddle. The Franche- 

 Comte, Lorraine, Ardennes, Boulonnais, Perche, and the Pays de 

 Caux are, in geographical order, the countries where draugh1>-horses 

 are especially predominant." 



CHAPTER IV. 



HORSES OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE. 



We will consider in this chapter all draught-horses, by far the 

 most numerous class, including as it does the animals employed in 

 commerce and agriculture, in the service of workshops and manufac- 

 tories, in farm-labor, in omnibuses and tramways, and in all sorts of 



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