116 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Fes., 1898. 
familiar with both types. The Flemish origin is evidently a mere cock-and- 
bull story, concocted to retain a trade secret by parties who had struck a good 
thing. The Flemish blood would not appear to be so readily obtainable, but, 
if it were known the improvement was obtained from the border, the monopoly 
of the improvement would soon have been lost to the possessors. 
“ Stonehenge” realised that the Clydesdale had greater strength than any 
other breed of draught horses, but could not understand how it was derived. 
Had “Stonehenge” and “ Youatt” but understood that the greater strength and 
superior merits of the Clydesdale lay in his conforming to Arab type in his 
oblique formation, what an improvement in English and Australian. horses 
might have been accomplished since they wrote their works on the horse. 
Most horse-drivers have had experience and realised the fact that greater 
size in a horse does not always give greater strength, and that it is possible to 
get a little horse that can, in a pinch, lift and pulla heavier load and in a 
better style than some much heavier horses could. They are also aware of the 
greater strength of any horse for draught, if, when at a lift, he gets down to 
his work, with feet set flat down on the ground away in front as well as 
behind him—getting longer and lower as he exerts himself—compared with 
another which under similar circumstances gets his feet under him, rises on his 
toes, and becomes higher and shorter as he exerts himself. But too few 
breeders and owners seem to be aware that this difference of style of pulling in 
their horses is a matter of angle of the bones of shoulders, hip, and pasterns: 
that the one can set his feet flat on ground before and behind and become 
longer and lower at a lift, simply because his shoulder, pastern, and hip bones 
are more obliquely set, than that of the poor horse whose straight shoulders 
and pasterns, &c., cause him to get up on his toes, when he immediately loses 
muscular power, which his greater weight is quite inadequate to compensate 
for. 
The history of the horse in Scotland is an object-lesson that, properly 
understood by Australian breeders, must tend to influence their practice and 
result in increasing the commercial value of our horse stock, and thus add 
immensely to our national wealth. 
The Arab was introduced in the early days of Scotland’s “golden age,” 
which began with the Norman Conquest and lasted till she was ravaged by the 
armies of Edward I. During those two centuries the Arab contributed to the 
luxury of a wealthy people, and was used for hunting and sport, and it was 
not until the war of independence that his value in war had occasion to be 
proved. At this time he was only from 18 to 14 hands high, but his effective- 
ness as an arm of war was such, that Edward III. was compelled to buy a 
peace, to enable him to reorganise the military drill and tactics of his time 
and to import barb blood to improve the horse stock of his kingdom, to meet, in 
some measure, the advantage the Scotch had obtained through the superiority 
of their horse. The Scotch Arab had revolutionised the old order of things. 
His fame extended throughout the whole of Europe, and a profitable export 
trade supplying the European demand for horses for the purposes of hunt and 
sport was the result. 
His repute as a cavalry horse was maintained on the Continent throughout 
the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 18th he still maintained his superiority, 
though his size and weight had been considerably increased. 
In the coaching days, before railways, horses for this work were supplied 
in large numbers, which for symmetry, style, pace, and power it would be hard 
to equal, and I am sure these qualities have never been surpassed. In the 
early fifties those horses were still plentiful. 
As demands for heavier types of horses have been made by the progress 
of agriculture, trade, and commerce, they have been met without departing 
ron we Arab lines imparted some 800 years ago by the stud of Arabians of 
Alex. I. 
