65 



Many old paintings and mezzotint engrav- 

 ings exist to show us the type of Great or 

 Shire Horse as it was bred at various epochs 

 of our history, more or less remote. Some 

 of these have been deposited at the offices 

 of the Shire Horse Society ; and these like- 

 nesses, often the work of the first painters 

 and engravers of their clay, suffice to show 

 that in massiveness and o-eneral character 

 the heavy horses of England were much like 

 those of to-day. We have now many horses 

 whose pedigrees are traced in the first volume 

 of the Shire Horse Stud Book for at least a 

 century and a half ; back to a date which was 

 within a lifetime of the last days of armoured 

 knights carried by Great Horses. It is this 

 lon^ line of descent which o-uarantees the 

 continued transmission of valuable qualities. 



The paintings and engravings, as also the 

 written accounts of the breeds of draught 

 horses in the United Kingdom up to the 

 middle of this century, depict them as of 

 medium size, and it is only by the blending 

 of the " Shire " with the blood of such stock, 

 that they rival the latter in massiveness. 



THE SHIRE HORSE SOCIETY. 



It is impossible to close this slight review 

 of the history of the breed without reference 

 5 



