. Breeder and sportsman. Horses. Saturday, October 29, 1910.] THE BREEDER AND SPORTSMAN 11 DRAFT HORSES IN NEW YORK. [Manhattan in Breeders Gazette] Some seven or eight years ago a distinguished repre- sentative of the British government visited this coun- try on a tour of investigation and observation. This being his first visit to America he saw many things to commend as well as to criticise. One of the first sights he witnessed which impressed him seriously, and which called forth his astonishment, was the comparatively small horses used for heavy trucking on the streets of New York City. U
. Breeder and sportsman. Horses. Saturday, October 29, 1910.] THE BREEDER AND SPORTSMAN 11 DRAFT HORSES IN NEW YORK. [Manhattan in Breeders Gazette] Some seven or eight years ago a distinguished repre- sentative of the British government visited this coun- try on a tour of investigation and observation. This being his first visit to America he saw many things to commend as well as to criticise. One of the first sights he witnessed which impressed him seriously, and which called forth his astonishment, was the comparatively small horses used for heavy trucking on the streets of New York City. Up to that period many of the horses used by those engaged in moving heavy load were from the American-bred trotting families, whose average weight was not far from 1200 pounds. The English investigator soon observed that such horses on the streets were slipping and sprawl- ing in attempting to haul their heavy loads and often fell to the street. He expressed the belief that the main reason why they were not able to do their work satisfactorily was because they were altogether too light, and that if such horses were used as are used on the Liverpool docks, and whose average weight is nearly or quite 2000 pounds, much of the slipping, sprawling and falling would be obviated. It is a coincidence worthy of note that soon after this official had indulged in this criticism a radical change was inaugurated in the character of horses engaged in moving heavy loads in this city. Whether this change was due to the advice he gave or whether it resulted as a natural sequence from the increased production of draft horses in the western States, or was partly due to both, is a problem I shall not undertake to solve. At all events, those familiar with New York street traffic observed that about that time the use of heavy horses began gradually to increase, and as time went on the A year or more ago James Butler, who uses a large number of heavy trucks in operating his wholesale and retail groce
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjecthorses, bookyear1882
