The horse; with a treatise of draught / [William Youatt].

  • William Youatt
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The horse; with a treatise of draught / [William Youatt]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    gig, carriage, and saddle horses, and even some that have pictension9 to rank in the list of racers.” In fact races were instituted at Sydney. A turf-club was formed, and horses of no despicable qualities entered the lists. An excellent stallion, named Bay Cameron, was imported from England, and the owner netted by him, for the first season or two, more than £600 per annum. Horses generally rose more than fifteen per cent, in value. Even at Sydney, £200 and more were given for a horse of extraordinary figure and powers; and no good saddle, gig, or cart horse could be purchased for less than £40. These horses were found to be remarkably hardy, and could undergo con¬ siderable fatigue. The greatest fault was a heaviness of the head, with a considerable degree of obstinacy and sulkiness—as much, however, the fault of education as of natural disposition*. A still later writer says, “ that the breed is rapidly improving, and par¬ ticularly the draught horses, from the importation of some of the Cleveland breed from England.” The true dray-horse, however, was yet to be found, and could not be procured from any of the native horses, not even with the assistance of the Cleveland. The mixture of English blood had not lessened the endurance of the native breed; for at the hottest time of the year, with the thermometer at times as high as ninety-six degrees in the shade, the writer says that he has ridden the same animal fifty miles a day for three successive days. They will all go through a vast deal of work, but they would have more endurance, if they were not broken in for the saddle and for harness so young. It is no unusual tiling to ride them sixty miles in less than seven hours, and immediately turn them out, to pick up what scanty herbage they can find. The number of good horses was so rapidly increased that their price had materially diminished, and scarcely more than £35 could be got for the best of them +. The traveller adds, that there are some diseases to which the horse is subject in England, which are as yet. unknown in New South Wales. Glanders has never made its appearance there. Greasy heels, the almost peculiar disease of Britain, have not been seen there. Strangles, however, are prevalent, and, the author of the present work learns from another source, unusually severe J. In Van Diemen’s Land the breed of horses, originally derived from India, is very good. A valuable breed of cart-horses is beginning to be formed. The riding-horses are small, but they are hardy. Horses of every kind are sixty per cent, dearer in Van Diemen’s Land than in New South Wales; because the colony is smaller, and the number of horses that are bred is comparatively small. Their treatment is not so good as in the larger colony. Many of them know not the taste of corn, and, when it is given to them, it is usually in the straw.§ THE TARTARIAN HORSE. Tartary comprehends a vast extent of country, reaching from the Eastern Ocean to the European dominions of Russia, through the central part of Asia and Europe. Eastern Tartary belongs chiefly to China—the Western has been subjected by Russia, but a small portion of it about the Caspian Sea claims to be independent. The tribes which inhabit this immense space are dissimilar in their appearance, and manners, and customs; but, with a few exceptions, the character of the horse is nearly the same. * Two Years in New South Wales, by P. Cunningham, vol. i. p. 296. f Breton's Excursions in New South Wales, in 1833, p. 330. | Ibid. p. 332. § Widovvson's State of Van Diemen's Land in 1S29, p. 184. D
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