THE 



SOUTHE 



^ E 



Bitot** to &gvfciiltttre, Jgortfcttltttrc, airo tin QotasfehtiHji Bvi 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. — 

 Xenophon. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of the 

 State. — Stilly. 



FRANK: G. RUFFIN, Editor and Proprietor. 



Vol. XV. 



RICHMOND, MARCH, 1855. 



P, D. BERNARD, Publisher. 



No. h 



For the Southern Planter. 

 ON THE HORSE. 



PART I. 



Classification, Nomenclature and Breeding 

 of the Different Varieties of Useful Horses 

 in England, particularly Yorkshire, the 

 great Horse-breeding District of England. 

 The Percheron Horse of France. 



New York, Jan. 15, 1855. j 

 My Dear Father:* 



The Agricultural Society of Yorkshire, the i 

 principal horse-breeding district in England,! 

 for their prizes, divide horses into four classes. I 

 (See the Prize List enclosed.) 



1. Coach, Coaching or Carriage Horses; 



% Hunters; 



3. Roadsters; 



4. Horses for Agricultural Purposes. 



1 . In coaching or carriage horses the largest 

 dealers in Yorkshire for the stud are William 

 Burton, residing just outside the walls of York, 

 and Jonathan Shaw of Acomb Hall. The 

 former breeds most of his coaching stallions 

 and travels (or as we say stands) them, as well 

 as thoroughbred, cart and roadster or nag stal- 

 lions. The latter does not breed any of his 

 horses, but buys coaching and roadster entire 

 colts at a half year old, and rears them from 

 that age chiefly on a farm at some distance 

 from York. Both these men quoted to me the 

 saying of the District of Cleveland, — the low 

 lying district extending from the York Moors 

 to the River Tees, — that "a Cleveland horse 

 of the old race has neither blood nor blacks 

 The meaning of this is that, according to tra- 

 dition, there are horses of the aboriginal tribe 

 of Cleveland which have not been crossed with 

 either the race horse or the cart horse, — the 

 color of the old English cart horse being gen- 

 erally black. Burton showed me three marcs, 



two very old, which he said were of the un- 

 mixed ancient race, and I afterwards saw one 

 on the estate of Stewart Marjoribanka, Esq., 

 M. P., in Hertfordshire. Though very highly 

 valued by their owners, I thought they needed 

 some refinement for quick work. Burton has 

 bred his exclusively to pure blood horses of 

 the most superior style — latterly to a brown 

 horse called Postemper. Rubens, itientioned 

 in the letter of the Inspector General of the 

 Agriculture of France to you, the finest 

 horse Shaw says he ever owned or saw, who, 

 of the coaching or carriage stallions, received 

 the first prize of the Royal Agricultural So - 

 ciety, was bred in this way. This prize was a 

 " local prize" of £30, awarded at the York 

 Country Meeting in 1848, celebrated for the 

 finest show of horses ever brought together in 

 the Kingdom.* At that time there was a dis- 

 tinct prize for a " Cleveland stallion. The 

 Yorkshire Agricultural Society, I am informed 

 by Mr. W atson, the Assistant Secretary, only- 

 award prizes for " coaching or carriage horses;' 4 

 but allow the old " Clevelands" to compete in 

 the same class. The distinction now abolished, 

 but which was formerly drawn, for the purposes 



Vol. XV. 



* W. 0. Rives, Esq. 



of premiums, between 



coaching" stallion 

 and an old " Cleveland," was that the former 

 was derived from an engrafting of more or less 

 of the blood of the racer on the original British 

 stock of the vale of Cleveland, while the latter, 

 according to tradition at least, was not, withm 

 the memory of man, of mixed lineage. At 

 present coaching stallions are frequently called 

 Improved Clevelands or New Clevelands. Low 

 (recently Professor of Agriculture in the Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh) contends that all Cleve- 

 lands were formed by the progressive mixture 

 of the blood of oriental horses, — not directly, 

 but through the intervention of the English 

 thoroughbred, — with that of the native parent 

 stock of Cleveland. He, with several other 



* See Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. 



