82  The  Devon  Pack  Horse  as  an  Army  Horse. 
can  be  said  of  some  of  our  more  modern  breeds  and  nondescript 
mixtures. 
Many  of  the  old  stallions  and  still  living  mares  could  trot 
their  mile  in  three  minutes.  One  stallion.  Cottager  /.,  besides 
winning  all  his  trotting  matches  also  won  steeplechases  ; many 
were  celebrated  hunters,  amongst  these  one  Tempest  belonged 
to  the  late  Mr.  Tucker  about  1852,  and  on  him  he 
used  the  whip  in  the  hounds  of  the  late  Crocker  Bulteel, 
Esq.,  M.P.,  of  Lynham  and  Fleet.  These  hounds  are  now 
known  as  the  Dartmoor.  Another  celebrated  stallion,  named 
Passby , for  many  seasons  carried  the  huntsman  of  the 
late  Sir  Henry  Seale’s  foxhounds,  now  the  South  Devon, 
in  the  country  round  Totnes.  Both  these  stallions  covered 
mares  in  summer  and  hunted  in  winter.  The  Kingsbridge 
to  Plymouth  coach,  driven  by  the  late  Mr.  J.  Tucker,  was 
horsed  entirely  with  Pack  horses. 
The  late  Mr.  J.  Mosey  Toms,  of  Luson,  in  the  parish,  who 
died  in  1896,  used  to  relate  that  when  as  a lad  he  worked  on 
his  father’s  farm  (about  1835)  there  was  not  such  a thing  as 
a two-wheel  conveyance  on  the  farm.  There  were  ten  Pack 
horses  kept  which  carried  the  corn  from  market  or  mills, 
carried  manure  on  to  the  land,  and  were  used  for  all  general 
farm  work,  also  for  riding  and  hunting. 
When  carrying  corn,  three  long  narrow  bags  were  placed 
across  a pad  on  each  horse  and  secured  by  straps,  each  bag 
when  filled  weighed  220  lb.,  the  horses  were  good  walkers,  and 
could  walk  their  five  miles  an  hour  under  these  loads.  One 
man  would  take  charge  of  a string  of  six  horses,  which  between 
them  would  carry  a total  load  of  about  two  tons.  The  man 
would  ride  and  change  from  one  horse  to  another,  and  it  would 
appear  that  each  horse  in  turn  would  carry  about  780  lb. 
Would  it  not  be  difficult  in  these  days  to  find  horses  capable  of 
walking  fast  under  such  a burden,  or  walking  at  all,  and  also 
capable  of  carrying  a huntsman  to  foxhounds  and  trotting  a 
mile  in  three  minutes  ? Such  were  the  Devon  Pack  horses  of 
the  last  century,  and  is  it  not  worth  while  to  make  an  effort 
to  rescue  the  breed  ? For  which  purpose  I believe  there  to 
be  still  sufficient  material. 
The  Pack  horse,  as  already  stated,  is  a very  fast  trotter,  but 
the  action  is  “ out  ” and  not  “ up.”  Mr.  Mosey  Toms  and  other 
old  farmers  talked  of  the  more  modern  Hackney  introduced 
into  this  district  as  “ Naildrivers,”  to  distinguish  them  from 
roadsters  of  the  Pack  breed. 
I will  endeavour  to  show  later  in  this  paper  that  the 
remaining  fifty  Pack  horses  in  this  neighbourhood  are  much 
of  the  old  blood  going  back  135  years.  Between  1840  and  1850 
two  Norfolk  roadsters  of  the  same  class  were  imported  into 
