Management of Farm- Horses. 
251 
heavy horses contains a greater proportion of the earth of bones 
than that of other horses, but there is unquestionably a greater 
power of assimilating these earths, so that I doubt not that if the 
blood of the dray-horse and that of the blood-horse were sepa- 
rately analyzed, a greater amount of the phosphates would be 
found in the former. 
The effect of this redundancy of bony structure in the system 
is to afford a larger basis on which the superstructure is built. 
The extremities of the bones which form the joints are more 
extended, giving a greater power of sustaining weight ; not that 
the bones are actually stronger, but rather the contrary, for in 
fact no bone can be stronger in proportion to its size than that of 
the thorough-bred horse : ilis hard, firm, and compact, whilst that 
of the cart-horse is softer and abounds more with fat or marrow. 
Although the surfaces of the bones which form the joints are 
larger laterally, yet they do not afford so much extent of motion 
as in lighter horses, or, in other words, the motions of the joints 
are more limited. 
The larger bony frame possessed by these horses of course 
affords a corresponding surface for the putting on of flesh as well 
as a greater capacity for the development of the internal organs. 
The muscles (or flesh) are more remarkable for their thickness 
llian their length, the former being the cause of power, the latter 
mat of speed, and the spaces between them are simply filled up 
by depositions of fat. The frame of the body is distinguished by 
rotundity and thickness ; the fore-legs are wide apart, and the 
chest broad, but by no means deep as in the long-winded speedy 
animal. The digestive organs are capacious, and the digestive 
functions far more powerful than those of the thorough-bred horse, 
whilst the brain is relatively smaller and the nervous system 
altogether less developed. We have here the key to the points of 
the cart-horse. Whilst he should possess all the characteristics of 
the breed he should be free from extremes. Thus while his back 
should be short and broad, the body round as a barrel, and con- 
sequently wide in the chest, yet the latter point must not be carried 
to such an extreme as to cause the horse to be a slow walker, for of 
all the sins of the cart-horse this is surely the greatest. An animal 
whose walk does not exceed 2 miles an liour will scarcely get 
through half the work in the day that will be accomplished by the 
free moving horse that can do his 4 miles in the same space of time. 
So important do I hold it that the cart-horse should be fast in ' 
the ohIt/ pace he is required to perform, that I would recom- 
mend to the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, or rather 
to the stewards of the cattle-yard, that a distance should be 
measured off, to the extent of some fraction of a mile, in the 
cattle-yard, so as to afford an easy method of judging of the pace 
s 2 
