30 CART HORSE VARIETIES. 



the second and third size of the Midland Counties, and the Suffolks. Of the 

 Cleveland Bays, and the Clydesdale or Lanark horses, we have not heard much 

 of late years, and it is probable they have never been much used out of their own 

 districts. The Cleveland Bays are a sort of strong Coach Horses, a very useful 

 breed for country labour, more particularly upon the road. According- to the in- 

 formation of a foreign Noble, a great amateur of the horse, who was at Petworth 

 last year (1818) the Earl of Egremont, one of our greatest breeders, has six 

 Cleveland Buy mares in his stud. The above foreign amateur judges by their 

 appearance, that they are of a pure indigenous English breed, without any mixture 

 of foreign blood; an opinion which will not be implicitly received. The Lanark 

 are the capital draught horses of the south of Scotland, some of them reaching the 

 size of sixteen hands one half in height ; strong, hardy, honest, and true to the 

 collar, but coarse headed, and inclined to be flat on the sides and hinder quarters ; 

 in colour, generally grey or brown, and the breed supposed to be upwards of a 

 century and a quarter old, the production, it is supposed, of common Scots mares 

 and the Flanders horse. The common mongrel cart and plough horse needs no 

 description. 



The great CART HORSE of the Midland Counties, to be found chiefly in Derby- 

 shire, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Lincolnshire, has been 

 bred chiefly from Flemish and Dutch stock, reared to a vast bulk in the lowland 

 pastures of those countries. In distant times, scarcely any but Belgic stallions 

 were imported, and the English breed of cart horses was increased in size, and 

 improved in strength, by a cross between the country mares and the foreign horse. 

 In process of time, however, and materially through the systematic activity of the 

 famous BAKEWELL, mares of the first size also were imported from Flanders, and 

 a breed raised of thorough-bred Cart Horses, that is to say, from thorough Belgic 

 blood on both sides ; in strict analogy with the system of breeding the ENGLISH 

 GALLOPER from unmixed South Eastern blood. From this pure stock, the capital 

 cart horses have since been bred ; and so bewitched was Bakewell with its pre- 

 sumed superlative and universal merits, that, some thirty years since, he sent to 

 Tattersall's, for the inspection of his Majesty the King, a black Cart Stallion of the 

 largest size, recommending him for the purpose of getting strong hacks, hunters, 

 and cavalry horses. We examined this horse attentively, and justice demands our 

 acknowledgment, that he was the lightest and cleanest-formed animal of his kind 

 and bulk, that it seemed possible for nature to produce light head well set on, 

 lofty forehand, deep shoulder, clean flat-boned legs, with comparatively, the acti- 

 vity of a poney. He was not, however, honoured with the royal approbation, the 

 King perhaps entertaining the opinion of Dr. Bracken, and not much admiring 

 " Flanders mettle" in a saddle horse. 



Formerly, the large, and, as we should say in Essex or Suffolk, Shire-bred 

 Horses, were, in colour, miscellaneous, black, bay, brown, grey but of late years, 



