The handy horse book - a manual for every American horse-owner (1883) (14579114908)

Identifier: handyhorsebookma00thor (find matches)
Title: The handy horse book : a manual for every American horse-owner
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Thorne, Charles Embree Wilson, Alfred Tinkler, joint author
Subjects: Horses
Publisher: Springfield, Ohio : Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick
Contributing Library: Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Tufts University



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be calledNorman, Norman-Percheron, or Percheron, undoubtedly origina-ted in Normandy, and from Normandy and Flanders are yetbrought the heaviest specimens of the French draft-horse. LaPerche, which lies to the south-east of Normandy, is a small de-partment, its territory being comprised in an ellipse about sixtyby seventy-five miles in size. The farmers of this departmentseem to have turned their attention, early in the present century,to the breeding of horses for the omnibusses of Paris, and fortheir purpose found* in the lighter and more active of the horsesof Normandy a suitable basis. With the advent of railroads thedemand for omnibus-horses decreased, while that for thoseadapted to heavy draft improved, as did also the facilities forinter-communication between different provinces, which renderedmore common the breeding of the stallions of one district uponthe mares of another, a practice which the government hasfostered by keeping stallions for public service at various stations
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(29) TSE DRAFT HOESE. 81 througliout the country. Taking these facts into consideration,together with the fact that no attempt has been made to preserveby means of a stud-book the pedigrees of any of the animals used,wliile any draft-horse imported from France, or whose pedigreetraces to such imported horses, is eligible to entry in the Ameri-can stud-books of ^Norman or Percheron-Norman horses, itis evident that the present dispute over the proper name for thisbreed is simply absurd, that both the names now in use should bedropped, and that of French-draft substituted, just as we useEnglish-draft or English-cart in speaking of the powerfuldraft-horse of England. But, since these horses were known inthis country as Norman long before the name Percheron washeard, it seems doubly absurd to drop the former name in favorof the latter. The prevailmg color of the French draft-horse of to-day is gray,varying into black, white, bay, and occasionally into roan orchestnut. Of 877 stallions whos