Not'^s on Cart Horses. 
319 
structure rests. A cart-horse should not only have big and 
broad feet, but ample depth at the heels is also essential. For 
unless there is depth of foot there will be diminished flexibility ; 
and consequently, the animal, though able to endure farm-work, 
will not be so capable of standing the severer test of the road 
or City traffic. 
Although having more hair than I desire, but as an example 
of perfect svmmetry combined with great power and grand 
action, I have selected for illustration "Spark" (2497), the 
magnificent stallion belongins: to Mr. Walter Gilbev, of Elsen- 
ham Hall, Essex, the President of the English Shire-Horse 
Societv. " Spark " gained First Prize as a three-year-old at 
the Royal Agricultural Show, Derby, 1881, and has twice been 
Champion Stallion at the Agricultural Hall. London. 
This splendid specimen of the Old English Shire horse, 
illustrated on the next page (Fig. 5), was bred in the \ ale of 
Aylesbury by Mr. W. R. Rowland, of Creslow, who sold him 
in 1881 to Mr. Walter Gilbey for 800 guineas. " Spark," in 
Show condition, weighs 22 J cwt., stands IT'l, and measures as 
follows : — 
Girth behind the shoulder 
Extreme girth around belly 
Girth of fore-arm ., 
Girth of fore leg be'.ow knee 
Girth of hind leg below hock 
Girth of second thigh 
Height to top of quarter 
Physiology of Beeedixg. 
Having expressed my views upon the structure of the cart- 
horse, I will venture a few words with regard to the Physiologv 
of Breeding. In a Paper which I contributed to the ' Journal ' 
in 1881, upon " Pigs, their Breeding and Management," I treated 
this topic ; and as the remarks then written apply with equal, 
if not greater force to the breeding of horses, I reproduce a por- 
tion of them here. 
" Some thirty years ago I was led to study the phvsiologv of 
breeding through meeting with a remarkable book, ' Intermar- 
riage,' by Alexander Walker, which, although devoted to the 
human family, contained valuable treatises upon ' The Appli- 
cation of the Xatural Laws to the Breeding of Horses, Cattle, 
and Sheep.' In 185-4 Mr. Reginald Orton, a medical prac- 
titioner of Sunderland, delivered two lectures to the Newcastle 
Farmers' Club upon ' The Physiology of Breeding,' in which 
(following Mr. Walker's views) he laid down certain fixed 
principles. Subsequent observations and experience have 
98 inches 
102 „ 
30* ., 
vih 
15 „ 
