55 



Horses," in which the following passage 

 occurs : — 



" We have a large and strong breed in the more 

 fertile and luxuriant parts of the island ; and there is 

 no country can bring a parallel to the strength and 

 size of our horses destined for the draught, as there 

 are instances of single horses that are able to draw 

 the weight of three tons." 



The roads in England had been vastly 

 improved since Holinshed described the 

 drawing powers of a team of horses in the 

 latter half of the sixteenth century ; but w^e 

 cannot doubt that the horse itself had also 

 improved, more especially during the eigh- 

 teenth century when the Great Horse w^as 

 gradually becoming the servant of the 

 farmer rather than that of the soldier. The 

 Statutes to which reference has been made 

 unquestionably did much to promote the 

 building up of the Great Horse breed and 

 establish it as national ; the counties and 

 districts enumerated in 32 of Henry VHI. 

 quoted on p. 24 show very clearly how wide 

 was the area over which the breed was dis- 

 tributed three and a half centuries ago ; and 

 it would be superfluous to lay stress upon 

 the increase of the area over which the Shire 

 horse has been bred since that remote day. 



It would seem that the action which our 

 forefathers sought to develop in the Great 



