THE HEAVY-HARNESS BREEDS OF HORSES 173 
The best early history of the county of Yorkshire 
appears in three separate prize essays by different writers, 
published in the ninth volume of the Royal Agricultural 
Society (England) Report, published in 1848, from which 
the following reference by George Legard is taken: 
“Formerly, a large, powerful, bony animal was required 
for carriage purposes; the fashion of the present day has, 
however, changed this particular, and now it is necessary 
that the London carriage horse should be at least three 
parts Thoroughbred. Consequently, all traces of the 
original pure coaching breed or Cleveland Bay, as it was 
termed, are nearly obliterated.” Another writer on 
Yorkshire in the same report, page 518, says: “ The 
Cleveland, as a pure-bred, is losing something of its dis- 
tinctiveness. It is running into a proverb that a Cleve- 
land horse is too stiff for a hunter and too light for a 
coacher, but there are still remnants of the breed, though 
less carefully kept distinctively than may be wished by 
advocates of the breed.” 
Other causes, too, were operating to change the type of 
the breed and encourage the more liberal use of Thorough- 
bred blood. One of these was that the abundant grass- 
land was converted into tillage-land. The high price of 
grains, due to the war, induced an unusual activity in 
farming, and a heavier horse was called for. The coal 
industry also demanded a heavier horse. Again, the use 
of the horse on the road, because of lighter vehicles, called 
for a lighter horse, so that, in a multitude of ways, the 
old type of Cleveland was undergoing dissolution. When 
the outlook seemed darkest, the American trade opened 
up, and, in 1884, the Cleveland Bay Horse Society was 
formed, and a stud-book established. At this time 
Thoroughbred blood was used very liberally. So much 
