52 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



in estimating the aggregate wants of the coun- 

 try and the interests of its production. 



From this review of the principal breeds 

 and actual condition of the horse in France, 

 you will see that this country is not particu- 

 larly distinguished at present lor the possession 

 of any very superior race. England is far 

 eminence the country of the horse, and nowhere 

 is this more felt and acknowledged than here. 

 The attention and solicitude of this govern- 

 ment have been earnestly and systematically 

 directed for years past and at great public 

 expense to the improvement of their native 

 breeds. A special administration, composed 

 of the ablest men, guided by the combined 

 lights of science and experience, has been 

 constituted to preside over and direct the work, 

 and the avowed basis of their operations is 

 the uncontested superiority of the English 

 blooded horse and his various crosses, and 

 the necessity of imitating the example and 

 practice of the English breeders.* 



The valuable work of Youatt has made 

 most persons in America so familiar with the 

 varieties of the English horse that any detailed 

 description of them, to you especially, is wholly 

 unnecessary. The thoroughbred English race 

 horse is an old personal acquaintance of most 

 of us in Virginia, and we know him by heart. 

 Then comes, next to him in blood, the Hunter, 

 and then the Hackney or riding horse, and then 

 the splendid Coach horse. Of the horses ordi- 

 narily employed for heavy draught, leaving 

 out of view the mammoth London Dray horse, 

 the two breeds now most popular and generally 

 known in England are the Suffolk and the 

 Clydesdale. Each of them has its special ad- 

 vocates and patrons. The Suffolk is the fa- 

 vorite of the Royal Agricultural Society, and 

 generally carries off the prizes at its annual 

 shows. It must be borne in mind, however, 

 that the prizes in question are offered for 

 horses "for agricultural purposes" merely, and 

 none but horses belonging exclusively to that 

 particular class enter into the compeiition. 



There is a remarkable breed of horses in 

 England which combines in itself the quali- 

 ties and capabilities of the Hunter, the Hack- 

 ney, the Coach horse and the Draught horse. 

 This is the Cleveland Bay, bred in Yorkshire, 

 the great horse-breeding county of England, 

 from which are derived the best specimens of 

 both the useful and the elegant English horse. 

 In the language of Professor Low, author of 

 the great work on the Domestic Animals of 

 the British Islands, the Cleveland Bay is the 

 horse which, "uniting the blood of the finer 

 with that of the larger horses of the country," 

 combines, in the highest degree, "action with 

 strength." He gives the history of the origin 

 and formation of the breed in the following 

 words: 



"It has been formed by the progressive mix- 

 ture of the blood of the race horse with the 



* See Compte Rendu of the administration of 

 the Haras for the year 1849. 



original breeds of the country. To rear this 

 class of horses, the same principles of breeding 

 should be applied as to the rearing of the race 

 horse himself. A class of mares, as well as 

 stallions also, should be used having the pro- 

 perties sought for. The district of Cleveland 

 owes its superiority in the production of this 

 beautiful race of horses to the possession of a 

 definite breed, formed, not by accidental mix- 

 ture, but by continued cultivation." 



Youatt shows how by uniting this horse, 

 which is peculiarly the type of the elegant 

 coach horse, with mares of various degrees of 

 breeding, you may produce, at will, the Hun- 

 ter, the Hackney, the Machiner, the Poster 

 and the common carriage horse; and, in 

 point of fact, it is by the instrumentality of 

 the Cleveland Bay, thus applied, that all 

 those varieties of the horse are produced in 

 the highest perfection in Yorkshire. That, 

 under proper modification, by crossing with 

 good common mares, this breed of horses is 

 also the best for farm work, I have had fre- 

 quent opportunities of satisfying myself by 

 personal observation, both in England and 

 Scotland. By far the most efficient, as well 

 as noblest-looking farm horses I ever saw, 

 were in the fields of a most intelligent and re- 

 spectable farmer whom I visited in the neigh- 

 borhood of Perth, who told me that all of his 

 horses, without exception, were of the Cleve- 

 | land stock, and that from long and close at- 

 ' tention to the subject in a wide sphere of prac- 

 tical observation, having, as land agent, the 

 j supervision of a hundred farms of the Duke 

 : of Alhol, he was convinced there was no 

 breed of horses equal to them, whether for 

 the farm or the road. 



After three years of the most attentive study 

 of all the varieties of the horse in this country 

 and in Great Britain, I came, unhesitatingly, to 

 the conclusion that the Cleveland Bay is the 

 horse best adapted to the whole range of our 

 wants in Virginia, and suited in an especial 

 manner to correct those errors of breeding by 

 which our Virginia horses have become very 

 much deteriorated. We were formerly in the 

 habit of breeding almost exclusively from the 

 full-blooded race horse, the consequence of 

 which was that our horses lost substance and 

 size, and the bone necessary for serviceable 

 uses. To correct these defects, we have of 

 late years gone to the opposite extreme, and 

 have bred, in some parts of the country, al- 

 most entirely from the large, coarse horse, 

 without blood and whooly destitute of action. 

 Of these two errors, both of them very serious 

 ones, the latter, in my opinion, is the most 

 mischievous and fatal'. "Some blood is de- 

 sirable even for the farm horse," Youatt (re- 

 cognized as the highest authority on the sub- 

 ject both here and in England) tells us. Blood, 

 in a larger proportion, is desirable in the coach 

 horse, in the saddle horse, (or the Hackney, 

 as he is called in England,) and in the Hunter; 

 and yet each one of these descriptions of 

 horses may be injured by having too much 



