515 
On Breeding Horses. 
By T. A. Knight, Esq., of Downton , Herefordshire. 
Having introduced, for the use of my tenants, a high-priced 
stallion, of the breed of the large London dray-horse, I wish to 
state to agriculturists the grounds upon which I anticipate much 
advantage from the introduction of so large an animal. He will, 
I have reason to believe, be, when full grown, not less than seven¬ 
teen hands high, and very compact in form. 
I conceive myself to have proved, by many experiments, of 
a part of which an account was published some years ago in the 
Philosophical Transactions, that the length of the legs of the 
offspring of all those animals which nature has intended to accom¬ 
pany their parents in flight, at an early age, is governed wholly 
by the habits of the female parent. This tribe of animals com¬ 
prehends the horse, the cow, the sheep, and deer, and many 
others. If the female parent be of low stature, and descended 
from a breed of a similar form and size, the length of the legs 
of the offspring will be short, and will not be increased in length, 
though they will in strength, by any influence of its male parent, 
however tall and large that may have been; and the converse of 
this proposition will be found to be equally true. 
The experience of almost every farmer must have taught him 
that horses with drop shoulders and bodies, and capacious chests, 
are more capable of bearing hard and long-continued labour than 
those of which the shoulders, and of course the chest, are 
shallow, and the legs long ; but comparatively few know how 
rapidly the powers of draught of any animal mechanically de¬ 
crease with the increasing length of the legs comparatively with 
the depth of the shoulders and body. If a horse, proportioned 
as English horses now generally are, be sixteen hands high, his 
forelegs, measured from the elbow-joint, will be about three feet, 
or nine hands high, and his shoulder about two feet four inches, 
or seven hands high. If such a horse be able to raise, by means 
of a cord passed over a pulley, a weight of a thousand pounds, 
another horse, similar to that in every other respect, except that 
of having its legs eight inches shorter, would, on account of the 
mechanical advantage of its form, be able to raise twelve hundred 
and fifty pounds, or one-fourth more, with considerably less 
exertionfor his power would increase with the diminished 
length of his legs, nearly in the same proportion as the power 
of the weight upon the longer arms of the steelyards is increased 
by being made to recede from the point of suspension : and if 
the length of the leg of such horse, comparatively with the depth 
of the shoulder, were further diminished, its power would in¬ 
crease in an accumulating ratio. The enormous strength of a 
bull of mature age affords familiar evidence of the truth of these 
