T60 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



some light on this subject of the relative breed- 

 ing of Hacks and Hunters, I shall be able to 

 show you a fine portrait of a most celebrated 

 punting mare, and also an engraving of a Hack 

 mare and foal from a picture by Herring — the 

 equal in many respects of Landseer and M'lle 

 Rosa Bonheur as a painter of animals, — who 

 had doubtless studied well all the points of a 

 Hack. A very superior animal may sometimes 

 unite good qualities so well that if trained he 

 would serve admirably either as a Hack, a 

 Hunter, a Charger, or even as a harness horse, 

 for the lighter description of vehicles ; but I 

 do not mean to intimate that driving him much 

 would not injure him for the saddle. To show 

 you that a horse may be adapted to different 

 uses, even in England where the division of 

 brute labor, according to the qualities of ani- 

 mals, is pushed to such extremes, I send you 

 one of TattersalFs catalogues of weekly sales, 

 where you will find a horse is sometimes ad- 

 vertised as being Hunter, Hack and harness 

 horse all in one. While my Virginia blood 

 does not allow me to feel with those who stig- 

 matize thorough-bred horses as "mere gam- 

 bling machines," or "grass-hoppers" (Saute- 

 relies, as your French friend called them), I 

 cannot run into the other extreme, and believe 

 that they are the best even for the plough and 

 every other service. As it appears to me clear 

 that they do not unite in themselves all the 

 qualities desired in useful horses for quick 

 movement even, the important point is to know 

 the best, if not the only other, race to be re- 

 sorted to, in order to give them more size and 

 weight ; or to counteract their tendency to 

 weediness, delicateness, and want of suitable 

 action, without taking away too much their 

 speed, their wind, their " bloody heads," — as the 

 common English people say, though all blood 

 horses, have not blood-like heads,— and their 

 general gentlemanly appearance It is not the 

 easiest matter to maintain the size of the race 

 of blood horses in their pure progeny, even 

 with constant attention and a careful continu- 

 ance of the best nourishment when young, per- 

 haps from their inclination to revert to the 

 normal proportions of their Asiatic and Afri- 

 can ancestry, which are about a hand lower. 

 As extreme crosses cannot answer, and pains 

 must be taken not to run into coarseness while 

 adding strength, in breeding horses for quick 

 and useful service, I see but one race and that 

 most probably a kindred one in all cases — the 

 Cleveland — with which to effect the desired 

 end. To produce horses fit for all useful, and 

 at the same time pleasurable purposes, requi- 

 ring less power than that of a coach or car- 

 riage horse, and yet not the swiftness, on a 



burst, of a race horse, I think far more highly 

 of the cross between Cleveland Bays, of the 

 right sort (for that breed has its slugs as well 

 as all others), and thorough-breds, than of any 

 other cross, apportioning the infusion of blood 

 according to the nature of the service sought. 

 The Cleveland bay seems to a certain extent 

 to occupy the middle ground between the blood 

 horse and the agricultural horses of England, 

 having, with much of the strength of the lat- 

 ter, the long neck, the clean limbs, the spare 

 and oblique shoulders, the finest color, the hor- 

 izontal and uncloven croup, and the quick tem- 

 perament of the former ; and on that account 

 to be alike well adapted to bring up the di- 

 minished substance, size and power of our Vir- 

 ginia part bred horses, and to impart more ac- 

 tion and muscularity, without too much dimi- 

 nution of weight, to the soft and lymphatic 

 Conestogas, for service in trucks, drays, and 

 heavy wagons. In this country we have com- 

 paratively but little division of labor among 

 men, and so it is with our horses, although we 

 have at least three times as many of the latter 

 as Great Britain, and a million more than 

 France. The national interest and chief de- 

 mand are for a horse of general utility, a 

 horse that can move with activity and some 

 quickness, as well as walk with a good load, or 

 be serviceable in the plough. I do not think 

 that I have seen twenty horses in Virginia and 

 New York, that would be deemed large enough 

 to pass muster at a show in England of agri- 

 cultural horses. The diffusion of blood through 

 nearly the whole mass of our horses was, I re- 

 member, remarked by you in a walk in Broad- 

 way the day after your last return from France, 

 and it has often been the subject of comment 

 by intelligent Europeans. It would seem that 

 we should aim to breed horses of such size that 

 if they failed occasionally for pleasure vehicles 

 or the saddle, they would be of use in humbler 

 spheres. 



Messrs. Henry and Cheslyn Hall at their 

 stud at Budding Hill, Willesden, about five 

 miles from London, where they keep about 

 a hundred and fifty horses, and in the number 

 half a dozen most distinguished thorough bred 

 stallions, * are breeding some of their thorough 

 bred mares and part bred Hunter mares to 

 their Cleveland stallion, Cleveland Shortlegs, f 



* Among the blood stallions at Budding Hill are 

 Harkawa} T , the largest horse of the kind in Eng- 

 land, The Libel, Epirus and Lothario. The last 

 two only have "knee action." 



f See a portrait of this horse in the British 

 Farmer's Magazine for January, 1854. He stands 

 sixteen hands and one inch high, and " possesses 

 immense bone, good action and excellent temper." 

 I heard his present owners paid five or six hundred 

 guineas for him. 



