ON THE MANAGEMENT OF FARM HORSES. 
109 
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 corner, 
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 
muscular, 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 ex- 
hibited 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 an ewe neck. The angles formed by the 
junction of the neck with the body, and by the head with the neck, 
should not be too acute, for such horses are very liable to poll evil, 
from the disposition induced of throwing up their heads suddenly, 
VOL. XXIII. Q 
