282 
Annual Report of the 
THE DRAFT—HORSE 
is gaining in popularity at the West; the entries at all our fairs 
show this. There are English and French, or Clydesdale and Nor¬ 
man, both sufficiently alike to be classed together. Great weight in 
the collar and sluggish action are their predominant characteristics. 
I cannot imagine these mammoth and much-consuming machines to 
be fitted to the present wants of Western agriculture. In the parts 
of Europe from whence they come, the roads are made hard and 
smooth for the drawing of heavy loads; first, markets are nearby 
and human labor is cheap and ready; in fact, the people are thick. 
Here, the roads are rough and often deep, and it is sometines diffi¬ 
cult to tell what they are made for. The selling-price is more or 
less remote; the farmer is his own man-of-al 1-work, and they do 
say our people are thin. Over there, the motto is, u slow, but sure;” 
here, it is “ the devil take the hindmost.” I believe that the de¬ 
mand for the pure draft horse, as an economical animal, will be 
confined, in this country, to the heavy truck-work of large cities. 
This will be a comparatively low market. 
The question of a cross comes in here. Of course, almost all the 
draft importations have been stallions. They are brought here with 
the laudable intention of increasing the size of our horse stock by 
crossing on our lighter native mares. This method, according to 
the best authorities, is not good breeding. When there is great 
disparity in size the weight should be on the side of the female, 
where the capacity to carry, nourish and perfect the foetus resides. 
If this is reversed, it is asserted that the produce will be liable to 
malformation, and likely to grow up unsound; the casket is too 
small for its contents, and this last becomes cramped in conse¬ 
quence. If this physiological view be correct, any cross with the 
draft stallion will be a failure, and breeding together the offspring 
will deepen the disaster. 
There remains still another sort of horse— 
THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 
As an individual breed it does not exist in this country. From 
what I have read, it has its best representative in the Cleveland 
Bay of England, the fruitful mother of improved breeds. Some of 
these animals have been imported, but I understand that they have 
