40 
ON THE MANAGEMENT OF FARM HORSES. 
which induces chronic or rather sub-acute inflammation. Thus the 
London pavement is a fertile cause of this disease, so much so that 
there is scarcely a dray-horse in the metropolis but what has some 
degree of ossification of the cartilages by the time he reaches six 
or seven years of age. I have no reason to believe that the food 
of 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 separately 
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 : it is 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 
than their length, the former being the cause of power , the latter 
that 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 two miles an hour will scarcely 
get through half the work in the day that will be accomplished by 
the free moving horse that can do his four miles in the same space 
