216 DRAUGHT AND HARNESS. 



as to enable the horse to exert his entire strength 

 under a theoretically less favourable angle of traction 

 than when the ease of the animal is sacrificed to 

 a correct, but in such a case inapplicable, mathematical 

 principle. In a word, our contention is, that the angle 

 of traction must be regulated with reference to the 

 horse, and not to the carriage exclusively. 



And by adopting this view, several things that 

 otherwise seemed contradictory and anomalous become 

 at once clear and intelligible ; as, for instance, the 

 English artillery adopt an angle of 15, while the 

 French find 11 to answer better ; and why ? because 

 on an average the English horses are less straight- 

 shouldered than the French, or indeed than any other 

 draught-horses that we have seen ; then again, the 

 results of General Berge's experiments at Metz could 

 not have been otherwise than anomalous, because one 

 horse will draw better under one angle, and another 

 under a different one ; and in fact, by overlooking the 

 conformation of the horse's shoulders, while varying the 

 angle of traction, one and the same animal will appear 

 in one experiment relatively stronger, and in a second 

 and third weaker, than another. 



The rule of the ' Artillerist's Manual ' is therefore so 

 far correct, but it is neither altogether so, nor does it 

 go far enough. For the essential thing is evidently 

 that the trace should be perpendicular to the horse's 

 shoulder-blade, through which the effort is exerted, 

 and whose form cannot be altered, and not to the 

 collar, which may be made of variable thickness ; and 

 then again, nothing whatever is said as to the particular 

 part of the collar, and consequently of the underlying 

 shoulder-blade, to which the trace should be attached, 



