AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
99 
THE HORSE. 
We recommend the following valuable 
article on the horse to the attention of our 
readers, and trust its length will not prevent 
a careful perusal. Like most Virginians, 
Mr. Rives inherits a love of horses ; and 
having resided several years in Europe, and 
had excellent advantages formaking himself 
acquainted with the best methods practised 
there of breeding and rearing them, he has 
well qualified himself to write, no less intel¬ 
ligently than justly on this important branch 
of rural economy. 
From the Southern Planter. 
Casti-e Hill, Va., January, 25, 1855. 
Mv Dear Sir : The accompanying letter 
on the Horse has been addressed to me re¬ 
cently by my son Francis, as containing the 
result of observations and inquiries which he 
pursued very closely and earnestly during a 
tour he made last summer and autumn in 
England and France. You will perceive 
that, like myself, he is quite an enthusiast 
on this subject, and warmly enlisted in the 
cause of improving our native breeds. Sup¬ 
posing the information he communicates to 
me would not be without interest and utility 
to many of our agricultural brethren, and 
knowing there is nothing he has more at 
heart than to be useful, in however humble 
a degree, to his native State, I have con¬ 
cluded to place the letter at your disposal for 
the columns of the Planter, as his contribu¬ 
tion to a branch of rural economy which, 1 
am glad to observe, is beginning to attract 
the general and earndbt attention due to it. 
I remain, my dear sir, with great respect, 
very truly and faithfully yours, 
W. C. Rives. 
F. G. Ruffin, Esq., Ed. So. PI. 
ON THE HORSE. 
PART I. 
Classification, Nomenclature and Breeding of the 
Different Varieties of Useful Horses in England, 
particularly Yorkshire, the great Horse-breeding 
District of England. The Percheron Horse of 
France. 
New-York, Jan. 15,1855. 
My Dear Father :* 
* * * # # 
The Agricultural Society of Yorkshire, 
the principal horse-breeding district in Eng¬ 
land, for their prizes, divide horses into four 
classes. 
(See the Prize List inclosed.) 
1. Coach, Coaching or Carriage Horses ; 
2. Hunters; 
3. Roadsters ; 
4 Horses'for Agricultural Purposes. 
1. In coaching or carriage horses the larg¬ 
est dealers in Yorkshire for the stud are 
William Burton, residing just outside the 
walls of York, and Jonathan Sh'awofAcomb 
Hall. The former breeds most of his coach¬ 
ing stallions and travels (or as we say stands) 
them, as well as thoroughbred, cart and 
roadster or nag stallions. The latter does 
not breed any of his horses, but buys coach¬ 
ing and roadster entire colts at a half year 
old, and rears them from that age chiefly on 
a farm at some distance from York. Both 
these men quoted to me the saying of the 
District of Cleveland—the low lying district 
extending from the York Moors to the River 
Tees—that “ a Cleveland horse of the old 
race has neither blood nor black." The 
meaning of this is that, according to tradi¬ 
tion, there are horses of the aboriginal tribe 
of Cleveland which have not been crossed 
with either the race horse or the cart horse— 
the color of the old English cart horse being 
generally black. Burton showed me three 
mares, two very old, which he said were of 
*W, C. Rives, Esq., from Francis R, Rives, 
the unmixed ancient race, and I afterwards 
saw one on the estate of (Stewart Majori- 
banks, Esq., M. P., in Hertfordshire, Though 
very highly valued by their owners, I thought 
they needed some refinement for quick work. 
Burton has bred his exclusively to pure blood 
horses of the most superior style—latterly 
to a brown horse called Postemper. Rubens, 
mentioned in the letter of the Inspector 
General of the Agriculture of France to you, 
the finest horse Shaw says he ever owned 
or saw, who, of the coaching or carriage 
stallions, received the first prize of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, was bred in this way. 
This prize was a “local prize” of .£30, 
awarded at the York Country Meeting in 
1848, celebrated for the finest show' of horses 
ever brought together in the Kingdom.* At 
that time there whs a distinct prize for a 
“ Cleveland stallion.” The Yorkshire Agri¬ 
cultural Society, 1 am informed by Mr. Wat¬ 
son, the Assistant Secretary, only award 
prizes for “ coaching or carriage horses;” 
but allow the old “ Clevelands ” to compete 
in the same class. The distinction now- 
abolished, but which was formerly drawn, 
for the purposes of premiums, between a 
“ coaching ” stallion and an old “ Cleveland,” 
w'as that the former was derived from an 
engrafting of more or less of the blood of the 
racer on the original British stock of the vale 
of Cleveland, while the latter, according to 
tradition at least, was not, within the memo¬ 
ry of man, of mixed lineage. At present 
coaching stallions are frequently called 
Improved Clevelands or New Clevelands. 
Low (recently Professor of Agriculture in 
the University of Edinburgh) contends that 
all Clevelands were formed by the progres¬ 
sive mixture of the blood of oriental horses— 
not directly, but through the intervention of 
the English thoroughbred—with that of the 
native parent stock of Cleveland. He, with 
several other writers, asserts that the race 
horse is of mixed lineage, and says, “ The 
basis [of the race horse] was the ancient 
horses of the country, which were modified 
after the Norman conquest by progressive 
changes, and at length by a large infusion of 
the blood of the horses of Africa and West¬ 
ern Asia. The mixed progeny thus formed 
being made to breed only with one another, 
or with the races of the East, to which they 
wrnre already allied in blood, have assumed 
the common characters of a race.” While 
it is certain that every modern racehorse 
may be traced back to some Arabian, Afri¬ 
can, or Turkish ancestry, or all three mixed, 
(assuming that they are sub-varieties of one 
and the same race—a doubtful point,) I am 
not satisfied there is any evidence that East¬ 
ern mares were imported with or soon after 
the first stallions, so as to furnish an un¬ 
crossed breed. But I do not intend to dis¬ 
cuss the vexed questions of the origin of 
breeds or the unity of species at a very re¬ 
mote period or the beginning of time.f 
The female progeny of an “old Cleveland 
mare,”—one at all events in which the na¬ 
tive blood of Cleveland, if not pure, is large¬ 
ly in excess—by a thoroughbred horse, 
Burton breeds to a stallion, in whom the 
blood of the race horse and that of the old 
Cleveland bay—the latter predominating— 
have been well intermixed. The descend¬ 
ants formed in this or a kindred manner are 
then bred with one another for successive 
generations to produce the breed of the New 
or Improved Clevelands, and to establish 
and maintain constancy and permanency in 
their characters. In order further to fix the 
type when the dash of blood is not remote, 
breeding in-and-in is occasionally resorted 
to, but to a very limited extent. 1 have been 
*See Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. 
t “ England’s breed” of men, now very distinct, was 
formed by the successive commingling of a great variety 
of races. Its tongue owns a cross-bred origin, 
thus particular in describing Burton’s prac¬ 
tice, for, from the number of stallions he 
owns and travels, he must exercise a marked 
influence on the breeding of Yorkshire. 
Among Burton’s New Cleveland horses, I 
saw two stallions of high repute, both by 
Rimphon, (now the property of the King of 
Prussia,) who was highly commended by 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England 
in 1848, and mentioned by the Inspector 
General of the Agriculture of France in his 
letter to you. They are magnificent ani¬ 
mals, standing with shortish legs sixteen 
hands and one or two inches—the favorite 
height.* One of these stallions, Aristocrat, 
particularly conformed to a Yorkshire ci i- 
terion of excellence, in being short on top 
(that is in the back) and long underneath. 
Your Cleveland horse’s half brother on the 
dam’s side —le poulain enorme, mentioned 
by M. Ste Marie—was bought by the Queen 
of Spain. Before the war, the Emperor of 
Russia annually purchased coaching, as well 
as blood horses, in Yorkshire,chiefly through 
Mr Kirby, to whose stables Burton has suc¬ 
ceeded. It is universally admitted in Paris 
that all the finest horses for the carriage 
( carrossiers ) and for private vehicles, from 
the Emperor’s down, of every description— 
excepting our American trotting wagons— 
as well as for the saddle, the chase and the 
turf, and for the service of the officers of the 
army, come from England. These facts in 
connection with the importations of the 
French government for the stud (haras) suffi¬ 
ciently attest the preeminent esteem in 
which the coaching horses of England are 
held in the various countries of Continental 
Europe. 
1 was exceedingly struck with the certain 
and harmonious result of mixing the blood of 
the racer with that of the Cleveland Bay in 
any proportion—a result which may be 
owing to the fact, if Low’s supposition be 
correct, that the two breeds have been for a 
long time allied, and may, therefore, be fur¬ 
ther brought together without any violence 
in crossing. I found that the Hunters in the 
neighborhood of Ripon (where some of the 
most prized horses in England are reared) 
owed their stoutness and power to a dash of 
the Cleveland blood, on the part of the dam 
more commonly.f Some tenant-farmers in 
Yorkshire keep two or three mares of the 
* Some blood horses gel. up to sixteen hands, though in 
that case they are prone to be too slim bodied and leggy, 
or, as the English say too, slender timber. 
tThe more general practice in crossing: in Yorkshire is 
to have the superior size of race on the side of the mare. 
This is probably founded mainly on the notion, which 
authority and experience both show to be fallacious, that 
there-would not be, in the contrary case, sufficient room 
in the mare for the uncramped development of the foetus 
and for facility of parturition. Spooner, on the other 
hand, prefers that the mare should be smaller than the 
horse, as tending more to refinement in the progeny, 
while the size of the future colt, derived from the larger 
parent, would not be materially affected thereby. Ste¬ 
phens discredits generally the theory of the dependency 
of the size of th eftztus before birlli on the size of the sire, 
and maintains that it depends, by a provision of nature, on 
the capacity and functions of the organs containing and 
nourishing it. For example, in an over fat, and therfore 
inwardly contracted female, the unborn young can not be 
largely developed, no matter how great the size ofthe sire. 
After it has come into the world, however, it tends in 
growing to approach or attain the dimensions of the bigger 
parent. It does not follow because a foal is small, when 
dropped, that it will be a small horse. Frequently ani¬ 
mals of great size are the issue of small females by large 
sires, and were small, comparatively, at the date of iheir 
birth. M. MalingiC Nonel,* who founded the celebrated 
French race of sheep, De La Charmoise. by crossing heavy 
imported Kentish (Romney Marsh) tups on ewes, of mixed 
indigenous breeds, less than n. fourth of the weight of the 
tups, states that in over two thousand cases but one single 
accident was occasioned in yeaning by the size of the 
lambs, and yet after their birth they grew so rapidly that 
before they were weaned they had become largerthan the 
ewes. No one who visits the great market of England of 
live stock for the shambles—Sfnithfield—can fail to be 
struck with the vast preponderance of cross-bred animals. 
Their male parents are, in most instances, of the very larg¬ 
est races, for example, Short Horn bulls and Cotsw'old 
and Leicester tups. This, compared with the reverse 
method in breeding, has superior economy, for a breeder 
can keep more good small animals on the same ground 
than large ones, and the breeding females are in tile pro¬ 
portion of sixty to one ofthe males. 
*Dc 9 CetM n laiue, j>. 42 , 
