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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST!. 
ON THE USELESSNESS OF BE AKIN G-REIN S. 
BY VISCOUNT DOWNE. 
It is said that when his Majesty George 
III., with a view to some improvement in 
military uniform, asked a life-guards-man, 
who had done good service in the battle of 
Waterloo, what sort of dress he should pre¬ 
fer had he another similar battle to go 
through, he received for answer, “ Please 
your Majesty, I should prefer my shirt¬ 
sleeves.” Now, though we should be much 
surprised to see our cavalry regiments turn 
out for parade in shirt-sleeve order, there 
can be no doubt the life-guards-man’s prin¬ 
ciple is a sound one. If a man wants to do 
a hard day’s work—if he wants to exert his 
muscles and sinews, either in walking, run¬ 
ning, fighting, digging, felling trees, or car¬ 
rying weights—he must have those muscles 
free and unconfined by straps and ligatures 
and tight clothing ; no one can gainsay this. 
But how is it, then, that a principle which 
every one, whether soldier or sailor, farmer 
or laborer, would insist upon in his own case, 
should be, in England at least, so universally 
disregarded in the case of our hard-working, 
patient, and too often ill-used beasts of bur¬ 
den ? How is it that the ignorance of “ com¬ 
mon things,” which Lord Ashburton so just¬ 
ly complains of, should be so lamentably con¬ 
spicuous in a matter so constantly before 
our eyes, in our towns, in our fields, in our 
crowded streets, in our rural lanes; namely, 
our draught-horse appointments I It must 
be owned that one class—all honor therefore 
be to it—that of cab and omnibus proprie¬ 
tors, have set a good example in one respect, 
viz., in doing away with that hateful instru¬ 
ment of torture the bearing-rein. But, alas ! 
in 99 carts and wagons out of 100 (carts and 
waggons which are to move at a slow 
and steady pace) we still persist in crippling 
unnecessarily our motive power, and gag¬ 
ging our unhappy horses by tying up their 
heads, as if in the very tyranny of wanton¬ 
ness. On the continent the bearing-rein is 
rarely used, and then only as a servile Eng¬ 
lish imitation ; but in horse-racing, hunting, 
horse-loving England, it must be confessed, 
its use is all but universal. In Yorkshire, 
in the midland counties, in the southern, up 
the steep hills near Scarborough as up the 
not less steep downs near Brighton, we may 
see heavy laden wagons at all hours of 
the day dragged miserably along by horses— 
one hand urged forward by ever restless 
whipcord—on the other, as if in the veriest 
spirit of contradiction, curbed in by sense¬ 
less bearing-reins ; and yet, if the attendant 
carter’s attention be drawn to the unnatural 
cruelty of the proceeding, he generally ap¬ 
pears fully alive to it. 
On seeing, the other day, a poor horse 
tugging a cart full of sand up the cliff at 
Brighton, of course with his head tied tight¬ 
ly to his back, we observed to a laborer near, 
“ What a shame not to undo the bearing- 
rein with such a load !” “ Oh yes, sir,” was 
the reply, “ I likes myself to see them free, 
but its custom, sir, custom ; they thinks 
they looks well.” However, it is to be 
feared the truth is, thought has little enough 
to do with it; if people did think, the days 
of bearing-reins would soon be numbered. 
The folly of the practice was, some years 
ago, very ably shown by Sir Francis Head, 
in his “ Bubbles, by an Old Man,” where he 
contrasted most unfavorably our English 
custom of tying tightly up, with the German 
one of tying loosely down, and both with the 
v rench one of leaving the horse’s head at 
arty—(and a man of shrewdness and ob- 
ation, a distinguished ^soldier, who has 
ed across the South A merican Pam- 
'd seen there heards of untamed 
all their native wildness and na¬ 
tural freedom, is no mean authority). Now, 
he has pointed out most clearly that when a 
horse has real work to do, whether slow 
work, as in our plows and carts, or quick, as 
in a fast gallop, or in headlong flight across 
the plains of America, nature tells him not 
to throw his head up and backwards toward 
his tail, but forward and downward, so as 
to throw his weight into what he is called 
upon to do. This is a fact within every 
one’s observation ; we have only to persuade 
the first wagoner we meet (he is sure to have 
all his horses tightly borne up) to undo his 
bearing reins, when down will go every 
horse’s head, so as to relieve the wearisome 
strain upon his muscles, and give the weight 
of his body its due and natural power of 
overcoming existence ; and thus each horse 
becomes enabled to do his work as comfort¬ 
ably and easily as nature intended he should 
do ; for nature never intended a heavy animal 
like a cart-horse to perform slow work only, 
or chiefly, by strain of muscle, but, on the 
contrary, by the power of weight as the 
rule assisted by strength of muscle as the 
exception, when extra resistence has to be 
overcome. Thus, when we curb up a 
horse’s head with our senseless bearing- 
reins, and make him as ewe-necked a§ we 
appear anxious to do, we are inverting the 
rule, and order of nature ; we are evidently 
trying to prevent his using the full unre¬ 
strained power of his weight, and are com¬ 
pelling him to overstrain and overexert con¬ 
stantly those very muscles which should be 
kept in reserve for extra difficulties—such 
as greater inequalities in the road, new-laid 
stones, &c. Now, any one can see that, to 
an old, worn-out, half-starved, overworked 
animal, as too many, ay, by far the greater 
proportion, are, this must be intolerable cru¬ 
elty. It is a mistake to think a bearing-rein 
can be of any service whatsoever, unless, 
as an exceptional case, to a very young, 
headstrong, unbroken horse. It is a mis¬ 
take to think it improves a horse’s appear¬ 
ance—nothing contrary to nature can ever 
really do this ; it is a mistake to think it can 
ever prevent a horse’s falling down, though 
it has been the means of preventing many 
an old one recovering from a stumble ; but 
until our horse-owners be taught to look at 
this matter in its true light, the light of com¬ 
mon sense, and until it be taken up by the 
influential landowners and more enlightened 
and more considerate of the tenant-farmers 
among us, it is in vain to hope for a mitiga¬ 
tion of this but too universal cruelty. Hun¬ 
dreds of humane men, employers of horse- 
labor, there are in all our counties and our 
towns, who, if their attention was but called 
to the senselessness and cruelty of the prac¬ 
tice, would at once see the necessity of the 
only prompt remedy ; and in these go-ahead 
days Prejudice and Custom have but totter¬ 
ing foundations ; the one is fast yielding to 
common sense and Lord Ashburton’s much- 
to-be-desired “knowledge of common things,” 
and the other will not long stand its ground 
unless it has something more than the pres¬ 
tige of mere antiquity to its favor. We our¬ 
selves have entirely done away with bear¬ 
ing-reins among our own heavy draught- 
horses ; and though our carters were at 
first rather astonished at being desired to 
discard them entirely and substitute a loose 
halter or rein at one side instead, they soon 
found that their horses were not a whit less 
manageable without bearing-reins, and that 
they did their w’ork with far greater ease to 
themselves. A great friend of ours, who 
has turned the sword of a dragoon into a 
plowshare, and has paid great and success¬ 
ful attention to farming affairs, gives it as 
his opinion that “ a pair of horses, when 
freed from this useless tackle and left to step 
in fredom, would plow one-fourth if notone, 
third more land in a day, and with greater 
ease to themselves and less fatigue when 
the day’s work was over, than when con¬ 
fined to their action by bearing reins.” 
It does appear not a little desirable that 
improvements should be made generally in 
our team harness, so that all unnecessary 
weight and useless gear, bearing reins, &c., 
should be got rid of; and perhaps if the 
Royal Agricultural Society were- to offer a 
prize for improved harness, and give the 
sanction of its authority to some improved 
type, we might hope to see ere long a great 
and beneficial change in this respect. Change 
is by no means desirable for its own sake, 
but the change from a bad system to a good 
one—from a bad to a good implement—can 
not be otherwise than advantageous to the 
community; and it is only by observing and 
obeying nature’s laws that we can hit im¬ 
provements which may be real and lasting, 
whether in mechanical appliances for plows, 
carts, and harness, or with respect to the 
practical details of scientific cultivation, or 
the condition and household comforts of our 
agricultural laborers. Agriculture fosters, 
and embraces in its maternal grasp the 
knowledge of high and noble sciences as 
well as that of “common things and it is 
not unreasonable to hope that that powerful 
Society, which preeminently represents the 
influence, the talent, the enterprize, and the 
humanity of our English agriculturist, will, 
among the thousand-and-one other improve¬ 
ments which it has introduced and is intro¬ 
ducing, not deem it beneath its notice to 
throw the energy of its influence against 
the unnnatural system of bearing-reins. 
PROLIFIC SHEEP. 
At the great fair recently held near Phil¬ 
adelphia, by the Pennsylvania State Agri¬ 
cultural Society, some very peculiar sheep 
were exhibited, the merits of which were the 
excellence of the mutton and prolific habits. 
A premium of $20 was awarded to the own¬ 
er. They are a Tartar breed and were im¬ 
ported direct from Shanghai, in the clipper 
ship While Squall, in the spring of 1852. 
Hence they receive the name of Shanghai 
Sheep. Dr. G. Emerson, of Philadelphia, 
procured a pair of these sheep, and another 
and only pair became the property of Mr. 
A. T. Newbold, also of Philadelphia. From 
Dr. E. we learn that two of his Tartar or 
Shanghai ewes brought three lambs last 
February, all of which have been raised, and 
now (Nov. 29) two more lively lambs, about 
a fortnight old. But this is not all, as the 
two ewe lambs born last February have each 
a lamb, making the old ewe a grand-mother 
within nine months, and her progeny sevenV 
These sheep breed twice every year and 
have, when at full maturity, from two to 
four, and even six lambs at a time. The 
fleece is rather hairy, but excellent for the 
coarser fabrics, such as blankets and carpets. 
The quality of the mutton is represented to 
be the finest in the world, delicate and en¬ 
tirely free from any rank or woolly flavor. 
They are of good size, and very docile, have 
Roman noses, drooping ears, and their faces 
are covered with a very glossy, short and 
silky hair. Their weight is about the aver¬ 
age of our common country sheep, and they 
are very hardy. When the wonderful dens- 
ity' - of the population of China is taken into 
consideration the single province of Shanghai 
containing as many inhabitants as the whole 
United States in 1840, we can readily under¬ 
stand why they have cherished breeds of 
animals calculated to supply them with the 
greatest possible amout of meat, while their 
grounds never left to rest, have produced 
three crops annually. 
A large flock of these sheep was formerly 
kepi by Mr. Oryder of this city* at his bean- 
