12 HORSE-BREEDING FOR FARMERS CHAP. 
from all cross of cart blood, can do more work, do it 
faster, do it more cheerfully and courageously, and 
will wear far longer than the carriage horse which 
has that cross of cart blood which, if even two 
generations back, will show itself in gradual loss of 
courage, in fast work, and general want of bottom 
and wearing qualities. Whilst the Irish and 
Americans can beat us with the average half-bred, 
there is nothing to compare with the Yorkshire bay 
horse and the best Yorkshire hackneys ; indeed the 
most praiseworthy examples of horse-breeding are 
probably in Yorkshire, Cumberland, and Durham. 
But when these counties, with the addition of 
Northumberland, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, 
Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Devonshire, 
have been mentioned, you have almost exhausted the 
real horse-breeding counties. And yet there are 
grass counties far exceeding in their proportion of 
grass to arable some of those J have mentioned, such 
as Cheshire, Wiltshire, and the Midlands generally, 
where very little is done by the ordinary farmer to 
take advantage of the natural facilities he has. 
Even in the north, in those districts where horse- 
breeding is general, there are so much carelessness, so 
much want of thought, so much happy-go-lucky sort 
of breeding, so much undersized rubbish, and so 
many unsound horses reared, which, with just a little 
more forethought, might have been valuable, that 
even the north-countryman has something to do if 
he desires to encourage and partake of a profitable 
trade in horses. You will find in the best districts 
some men who do not breed at all, others who 
breed rubbish from valuable mares, others still who 
