VI] 



DRIVING AND HARNESS 



65 



driver to sit right forward upon reaching a 

 steep hill, but the most humane solution is for 

 him to get off and walk and to place the load 

 forward. 



For light private two-wheeled carriages or 

 for light two-wheeled carts this alteration of 

 weight is unnecessary, except upon going up 

 very steep hills, when the driver should lean 

 well forward. This cannot be done with four- 

 wheel carriages, so in this case the driver would 

 help the horse by mounting him. Experiments 

 to prove this have often been carried out. A 

 cart is loaded until the horse is just unable to 

 draw it up a steep hill, heavy weights of about 

 300 Ib. are attached to the saddle of the horse's 

 harness, and the horse proceeds up the hill. 



254. The above points do not apply at all to 

 draught along level, up slight inclines, or down- 

 hill. In these cases the load should be placed at 

 the back, tending to raise the horse slightly off 

 the ground, thereby giving his legs less weight 

 to carry and consequently saving fatigue and leg- 

 strain. The objection to this is that the horse 

 is liable to get girth galls if the greatest care 

 is not taken. At any rate, when going down- 

 hill the driver must sit on the back of the cart 

 if it is two-wheeled. The driver of a light two- 

 wheeled vehicle should lean back. 



255. The poles or tongues of vehicles should 

 either be fixed, as in P. 47Z>, 134c, or suspended 

 by a strong spring, so that no weight bears upon 

 the horse's collar. Anyone who has wheeled a 

 two- wheeled hand-barrow, and who has tried the 

 difference between a forward and a back load 

 when going up and down hill, will readily 

 understand how much easier it is to draw a 

 forward load up a hill and to draw a back load 

 down a hill, along level, or up a very slight 

 incline. 



256. Whiffle-lrees. The attachment of the 

 traces is of great importance. As a rule, in pair- 

 horse carriages, farm wagons and many other 

 vehicles, especially in England, the traces are 

 attached rigidly on each side. This is quite 

 wrong, and is the cause of many sore shoulders. 

 As explained under the heading of "Collars" 

 (Sec. 273), we see that as a horse moves at any 

 of its paces the shoulder-blades advance and 

 retract alternately, and not together, so that, with 

 traces fixed independently and rigidly, they 

 become alternately tight and loose, and there- 

 fore there is a see-saw-like bearing on the collar. 

 To prevent this the rear end of the traces should 

 be attached to a whiffle-tree (see P. 36c-/), so 

 that while the horse is in motion the tree is 

 oscillating slightly all the time. This is more 

 important with breast harness. (See P. 36d, e.) 

 The whiffle-trees are used on all American 

 buggies and all heavy vehicles on the American 

 continent ; there is no reason why they should 

 not be used on private vehicles, etc. The advan- 

 tage of draught horses being driven abreast, as 



J 



in P. 114c, which is a general practice on the 

 American continent, is that the load upon the 

 horses' shoulders is kept constant, whilst in 

 tandem the lead horse does not keep the traces 

 tight all the time and the two horses are not 

 always pulling together. At one moment the 

 lead horse relieves the wheeler of his load, and 

 the reverse happens the next moment. This 

 is most exhausting to the horses. It is most 

 important that the pull exerted upon the horses' 

 shoulders should be constant and steady, and not 

 an uneven one. With the American system the 

 " evener " keeps the traces of both horses always 

 tight, unless one horse drops back very far. A 

 whiffle-tree behind each horse is attached to the 

 ends of the "evener." The pull is kept more 

 even by using a short, strong spring attachment 

 to the traces (P. 143c). This shows the spring 

 attached to a coal-merchant's harness, which 

 saves the horses' shoulders considerably. On the 

 other hand, this spring must not be such as to 

 allow much elasticity to the traces, or power will 

 be lost. Impetus is necessary to overcome an 

 obstruction on the road, and elasticity in the 

 direction of the movement destroys the full 

 effect of impetus. Thus, when a horse is moving 

 along at a trot, and the wheel meets a stone, 

 if the traces are very springy and the load very 

 light, the stone might decrease the speed of the 

 load so much that by the time the limit of 

 stretch of the traces was reached the load 

 would be stationary, and a terrific jerk would 

 be required to restart it. In fact, in going 

 over a rough road the horse would be con- 

 tinually restarting the load. So that it is of the 

 greatest importance that the traces be non-elastic, 

 except so far as a small powerful spring may 

 be introduced, as described above. This absence 

 of elasticity is of greater importance in the 

 attachment between the load and the wheels or 

 the runners of a sleigh ; for example, the Gee- 

 spring carriage, that allows a backward and 

 forward motion upon the wheels. This type is 

 the worst type of vehicle for a horse to draw. 

 If such a vehicle meets a stone, the impetus of 

 the wheels alone is not sufficient to pass over 

 it, and the impetus of the body of the vehicle 

 is absorbed by the elasticity of the spring. Thus 

 the vehicle will become stationary. But with 

 no springs, or springs that allow no forward 

 movement of the body, the impetus of the body 

 will carry the vehicle over the stone and allow 

 it to continue practically at its normal speed. 

 The more rigidly the weight of the vehicle, or 

 the weight in the vehicle, is attached to the 

 wheels or sleigh runners, the more constant will 

 be the speed of the vehicle when going over 

 rough ground, and, therefore, the less will the 

 horse be fatigued. For this reason I do not 

 recommend Gee springs where the horse is 

 considered. 



257. We might wonder how it is that a horse, 



