THE CART-HORSE.
THE show of " Shire " horses—as the old breed of the English cart-horse is now generally called—that took place at the Royal Agricultural Hall during Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week, was hardly as successful in point of entries as that of last year. The new regulation, that every animal must be passed as sound by a duly qualified veterinary surgeon before being exhibited, may have bad something to do with the decrease of entries from 646 in 1890 to 497 this year; but it is probable that the large falling-off in the export of last year, as compared with the year before, may have also exercised a deterrent influence upon ex- hibitors. In spite of the absence of foreign buyers, however, the average price realised at the auction, held on the last day of the show, was only 158. lower than the average of prices for the twelve years during which the show has existed. Though, indeed, it would be difficult to base any accurate calculations upon the results of the auction-sales, seeing that the average price must vary according to the proportion of stallions and mares that are offered, and is also considerably affected by the fancy figures paid for some of the prize- winners that may happen to be included in those sales. On Friday, last week, two of the stallions were sold for 500 guineas each, and one of the mares for 270, sums that must have added largely to the general average. Notwithstanding the fact that the two first prizes were again carried off by the champions of the two preceding years, it seems generally admitted by good judges that the standard of excellence this year is as high as any that has been reached as -yet; and certainly the number of commendations that the jury awarded to every class would show that they had experienced more difficulty from a superabundance than from a want of merit. At least, they must have had considerable difficulty in allotting the champion cup, for the two claimants of that first honour, Vulcan,' the winner of 1889, and Hitchin Conqueror,' the winner of 1890, seemed both to combine pretty nearly all the perfections that an admirer of the Shire horse looks for.
The Shire horse has many admirers, whose faith in his good qualities is not the less touching because it is a little blind. They believe that besides the ponderous strength and weight, which is equally shared by the Clydesdale and the Suffolk Punch, he possesses the merit of activity. Truly he does possess strength and weight in a superlative degree, but we should feel somewhat disposed to question the activity : at any rate, he must possess that merit in rather unknown quantity, for it is one that is rarely put to a test. His size and his strength are undeniable, but his pace, it must be admitted, is a little sluggish. If those first two qualities were all that were to be desired in a cart-horse, the breeders of the Shire have succeeded admirably ; they have produced an animal which almost rivals tie elephant in slow and ponderous power, and which, if it is not equal to the elephant in intelligence and docility, is at least more easily fed and less dangerous to his keepers. But the question is, whether we have any use for elephants in England, and whether we get any real advantage from an animal that combines the strength of two ordinary horses with only half their speed. Other admirers he has, who merely rejoice in his beauty. Certainly, of all horses, the heavy cart-horse is the most picturesque, whatever his breed : witness the pictures of George Morland or Rosa Bonheur. He alone can approach
the description of the horse in the Book of Job : the horse, whose neck is clothed with thunder, who paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength, and who swalloweth up the ground in fierceness and rage. To swallow up the ground might have been a true description of the gait of his supposed ancestor, the old war-horse, but it can hardly be said to apply to the modern cart-horse himself, who is wont
to devour space very soberly. That the Shire horse is the direct descendant of the old war-horse, is also an article of faith among his admirers, who love to trace back his pedigree to what was sometimes known as the " great-horse," and in some statutes of Henry VIII. is actually called the " Shire " horse. There is no reason to disbelieve in his descent ; indeed, it is very probable that the " Shire" counties did breed and supply a great many of the horses that, panoplied in heavy armour, took their part in tournament and battle. When a trooper's armour and accoutrements added at least another ten or twelve stone to his riding weight, he needed a weight- carrier of no ordinary capacity ; and as the superior size and weight of the horse itself must have helped greatly in the shock of a melee, one can well imagine that an attempt was made to breed as large and heavy horses as possible for that purpose. But, granting the romantic history, and even the utility, of the Shire horse in the past, we still consider that his utility at the present day is rather overrated, and that the efforts of his breeders to produce the maximum of size and sheer weight are misdirected.
When it is a question of a " long pull and a strong pull " to be applied to very heavy weights, of carting huge blocks of stone, of brewers' drays, of furniture-vans, or of any very heavy freight that has to be dragged through _our narrow streets or lanes, the gigantic Shire horse still proves his right to exist, because he possesses the greatest amount of draught-power in the smallest compass. Where it would be impossible to work six or seven horses together, it is often quite possible to use three horses of superior size and strength In our London streets, for instance, the Shire horse undoubtedly has his advantages. But when it is a question of ordinary carting, in town or country, of field-work, of ploughing, harrowing, and the many agricul- tural operations in which a horse is used, and in which the huge Shire horse is too often and needlessly used, his advantages are completely outweighed by his disadvantages. The ordinary pace of the cart-horse, whether in the loaded cart or harnessed to the plough, is emphatically slow and sluggish. The ordinary pace of the carter, or ploughman, is a willing imitation of the horse he is driving. Both horse and man are agreed to go as slowly as they can with comfort, and crawl along at a rate that is not in the least justified by the weight behind them. Take, for example, the operation of ploughing. The draught of a plough depends a good deal upon the state of the shares and coulters, and the nature of the soil to be turned ; but supposing that it is a good plough, ploughing 9 in. by 6 in. in a mixed soil, it has been calculated by good authorities that the draught should certainly not exceed 5 cwt. The distance to be travelled in ploughing an acre would average from twelve to thirteen miles. A pair of Shire horses will manage to plough about three-quarters of an acre in a day, travelling at the ordinary rate of about a mile and a half an hour, and making due allowance for stoppages. Now, the weight of an ordinary omnibus, when loaded, is fully three tons, if not more, and one pair of omnibus-horses will drag that weight for fifteen miles before their day's work is over, at the rate of six to seven miles an hour. What, then, is the use of the superior power contained in the Shire horse, if a pair of them can only drag a weight of five hundredweight a distance of nine miles at the rate of one and a half miles an hour, while a pair of omnibus- horses will drag twelve times the weight, at four times the pace, a distance of fifteen miles P We will not try to make any mathematical calculations as to the amount of draught- power that is wasted in a day by a Shire horse ; but putting his strength at about double that of the London omnibus-horse, be can hardly expend the hundredth part of it in his usual labour in the field. And the same remarks that we have made about ploughing would apply fairly to most of the carting that a farm-horse has to do. A half-bred horse, walking at two and a half, not to say three, miles an hour, with only half the weight and draught-power, will do pretty nearly double the work in a day. The Shire horse, in our opinion, is worse than useless on the farm. The horse is slow ; and because the horse is slow, the man is slow ; and because both his horse and his man are slow, the British farmer is slow,—lamentably slow and behind his time. Heaviness is a poor substitute for speed, as those who worship mere size and strength will per- haps some day find out for themselves. What is the use of all that reserve of power in one animal, if it cannot be turned to profit P The Americans, whom curiosity has tempted from time to time into importing some of our home-bred monsters, can find no use for them at all. All their farm-work, even of the heaviest description, is done by animals of a much lighter and more active character, and done, too, quite as easily, and in- finitely more quickly. Let the Clydesdale or the Shire horse be used for carting blocks of stone or pulling brewers' drays in narrow places, until some other motive-power, electricity perhaps, may supersede them ; but do not let us encourage their maintenance for agriculture purposes. It is not without mason that our American critics scoff at the amount of labour expected from an English horse and his driver.
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