Management of Farm-Horses. 
259 
may notice that to which this breed is so very much predisposed 
— the possession of large ring-bones and side- bones on the pas- 
terns. Perhaps it may scarcely be possible to find a suitable 
horse entirely free from this defect ; but we should at any rate 
select one that is most free, and reject altogether a horse that is 
lame from such causes. 
The hock is a most important joint, being severely called upon 
in heavy draught, and consequently liable to strains. The exist- 
ence of any disease of this joint, whether curbs, spavins, or 
thoroughpins, should therefore be sufficient to condemn the horse. 
The hocks' should be broad in front, and neither too straight 
nor too crooked, nor yet cat-hammed. When we consider that a 
heavy dray-horse, working in the shafts, has perhaps a load of 
four or five tons behind him, which, in going round a cornei", 
devolves on him alone, and in the action of walking must thus be 
thrown alternately on each hock, the importance of having this 
joint free from disease and from all tendency to disease must be 
very apparent. 
Next in importance are the eyes, which in the old horse 
should be free from every semblance of defect (unless through 
accident), and in the young horse should also be free not only 
from actual disease, but from all appearance of tendency to it. 
The eyes should be full without being too convex ; for the 
small sunken eye is certainly much more liable to disease than 
the large clear eye. The fore-legs of the horse should be strong, 
and flat below the knee, and by no means round and gummy, 
either before or behind ; for cart-horses having always a stronger 
predisposition to swellings and humours than other horses, it is 
most essential to guard against this evil by selecting the stallion 
as free as possible from such predisposition ; and, for the same 
reason, the less white hair there is about the legs the better, and 
indeed there should not be too much hair of any colour. The 
fore-arm should be strong and musculai', and should not stand 
too much under the body, for although this is not of the same 
importance as with other horses, yet it is extremely desirable. 
So likewise with regard to the shoulders : they should be tolerably 
oblique, for when the shoulders are good, the horse is likely to be 
a good walker ; the elbows should not be too close to the chest, 
but there should be plenty of room to put the hand between them. 
This pinning of the elbow to the ribs was a principal fault in one 
of the finest horses exhibited at Northampton, and it caused the 
animal to have very bad action. With regard to the neck, it had 
better be rather too thick than too thin, of average length, and, 
if moderately arched, so much the better. It is a great fault in 
all horses — but particularly in cart-horses — to have a ewe neck. 
The angles formed by the junction of the neck with the body, 
