THe Hors. 21 
III.—POINTS OF HORSES. 
Every one who has anything to do with the horse should 
know something of the “poirts” by “means of which a good 
animal is distinguished from a bad one. It is necessary to 
understand this, no matter for what particular service the horse 
may be required; and the qualities indicated by these points 
are universal in all breeds. 
To illustrate this subject and teach the uninstructed how to 
correctly judge the horse, we introduce the accompanying let- 
tered outlines. 
It is evident that to be a good judge of a horse, one must 
have in his memory a model by which to try all that may be 
presented to his criticism and judgment. 
Fig. 5 represents such a model. It is a thoroagh-bred 
horse, in which the artist has endeavored to avoid every fault. 
Fig. 6 is designed to represent a horse in which every good 
point is suppressed. It may not be common to see a horse 
totally destitute of every good point; but injudicious breeding 
has so’ obliterated the good ones, that the cut fig. 6 is not a 
caricature, though we confess that its original is little less than 
a caricature on the true ideal of a horse. Such a head is com- 
mon, so is such a shoulder, such a back, quarters, and legs; 
and if they are not very often all combined in one animal, they 
are, unfortunately, often found distributed among the common 
breeds in such abundance as to mar the beauty and the service 
of three quarters of all the horses in ordinary use. The letters 
are alike on both figures, and will enable the reader to draw a 
comparison between the respective points of each. We copy 
the description of the cuts from the Farmer’s Companion: 
“The most important part of all is probably the direction of 
the shoulder, from Ato B, Next to this, the length from the 
hip to the hock, C to D. The point which next to these prob- 
ably most contributes to speed and easy going, is the shortness 
of the canon bone between the knee and the pastern joint, E 
to F, a point without which no leg is good. A horse which 
has all these three points good will necessarily and infallibly 
