610 THE HORSE. 



Chalk, retaining the typical characters, but varied with the 

 climate, food, and other circumstances affecting its culture 

 and condition. In the commons and poorer grounds it pre- 

 sents the coarse pack-horse form, distinctive of the greater 

 part of the older horses of England. But in the fens and 

 richer cultivated country, it attains to the strength and 

 stature of the largest horses which the world produces. 



But the older Black Horse of the fens and midland coun- 

 ties differs in several respects from the modern cultivated 

 race. Few now exist in their original state of rudeness ; 

 but scattered individuals are still to be met with, bordering 

 on the commons, or in possession of very old farmers, and 

 their condition shews the changes which time and cultiva- 

 tion have effected on the race. These older Horses possess 

 the bulky form which seems everywhere to characterize the 

 black stock in the countries where rank pastures exist. They 

 have coarse heads, large ears, and thick lips, largely garnished 

 with hairs. They have coarse shoulders, stout hairy limbs, 

 broad hoofs, and short upright pasterns. They are strong, 

 of a soft temperament, and eminently deficient in action, 

 spirit, and bottom. The first regular attempt which we are 

 informed of to improve this ungainly breed, was made by 

 one of the Earls of Huntingdon, who imported several 

 Dutch Coach Stallions, which, with great difficulty, he per- 

 suaded his tenants on the Trent to make trial of. Many 

 years afterwards Robert Bakewell, of Dishley, in the county 

 of Leicester, began to apply those principles of breeding to 

 the improvement of the Draught-Horse, which he had adopted 

 with unrivalled skill and success in the case of the other 

 domestic animals. He acted upon the conviction, that the 

 properties of the parents, with respect to both form and tem- 

 perament, can be transmitted to the progeny, and rendered 

 permanent by continued reproduction. He went himself to 

 Holland, and importing several mares, crossed them with 

 native stallions ; and pursuing a course of careful selection, he 

 formed at length a stock, which he regarded as possessed of 



