CART HORSES. 225 
Pennsylvania. It is doubtful if they could be bred 
with profit in New England, but seemingly it would be 
profitable for farmers at the East to buy Percheron, 
or half-bred Percheron, or Clydesdale colts at the age 
of two or three, work them moderately, and sell them 
again at the age of five or six. Under this system, 
the horses would come to the market in much harder, 
better condition than the corn-fed animals of the 
West, and consequently they would bring a better 
price. Upon the farm, the colt would be able to per- 
form enough labor to pay his way; and the difference 
between his value at three and his value at six years 
of age would be clear profit. It is in this manner 
that Percherons are brought up in France; the farm- 
ers who buy them from the breeders, farmers also, 
working them moderately until they are of an age 
to be sold. 
The enormous shire horses that are used in London 
as dray horses receive their education in the same 
way. “The traveller,” says an English writer, “has 
probably wondered to see four of these enormous 
animals in a line before a plough, on no very heavy 
soil, and where two lighter horses would have been 
quite sufficient. The farmer is training them for 
their future destiny; and he does right in not requir- 
ing the exertion of all their strength, for their bones 
are not yet perfectly formed nor their joints knit, and 
were he to urge them too severely he would probably 
injure and deform them. By the gentle and constant 
exercise of the plough he is preparing them for that 
continued and equable pull at the collar which is 
afterwards so necessary.” 
In England it is customary to use heavy shire horses 
15 
