224 DEAUGHT AND HARNESS. 



nearly the whole pressure off the back is quite correct. 

 This is, however, comparatively speaking, a modern 

 idea, for we can well remember the time when such 

 vehicles were loaded very differently, the weight being 

 thrown to a great extent on the horse's back, under the 

 then -prevalent notion that there is a great advantage 

 gained by bringing a horse as near to his work as 

 possible. But a great oversight has been committed, or 

 rather, a great many of us have forgotten to think at all 

 about the matter, and have gone on using hames and 

 collars that were constructed to be used with shafts 

 that hung in a horizontal position at best, whereas they 

 are now triced up sometimes 1 foot higher at the point,, 

 with the same height of wheel, forming an angle of from 

 10 to 15 with the horizon. This has, in innumerable 

 instances, inverted the angle of traction, so to say ; and 

 the line of the trace, which was intended to be hori- 

 zontal in accordance with the mathematical theory,. 

 now descends from its point of attachment on the shaft 

 to the joint of the collar, so that instead of forming a 

 right -angle with the collar and shoulder-blade, it forms 

 a very acute one with both. No doubt we have thus 

 taken the load off the horse's back, but what we have 

 done with the poor animal's neck and shoulders i& 

 shown by Fig. 17, which is, we are sorry to say, any- 

 thing but an exaggeration, or an exception to what 

 daily comes under our observation. This figure scarcely 

 requires an explanation : s s represents the shaft tilted 

 up, a shows the angle of traction with a short trace,, 

 such as is used in carts, and b b that of the long one 

 used in gigs ; and it is quite evident that, with both 

 one and the other, every effort made by the horse tends- 

 to make the collar slip upwards in the direction of the 



