Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-05-16
The Horses Back.

Upwards OF twenty years ago, an
English authority on the breeding of
horses, Mr.. w. Dickinson, in q letter
addressed to tie Right Hon. John
Evelyn Denison, drew attention to an
important principle to be observed in
the selection Of horses for various pur-
poses. In order t, make his meaning
more clear, we will begin with an illus
tration which he uses after stating the
results of his W careful observation
of draft horses: it is that of the arch of
a bridge, which from it's structure can
bear great weight placed upon it (;
whereas an inverted arch would fall to
pieces; or a pressure far less than that
of the incumbent weight, brought to
break it up.
Mr. Dickinson had observed that his
low-backed, or, as they would be COM
monty called, rather. hollow-backed
horses, working in harness, kept their
condition well, while those with high
backs lost flesh. A less quickly OBJ
servant man would not have noticed
this fact, perhaps, in the course of his
lifetime. He would have seen that
some horses were always full-fe he'd,
others poor after much work, and
he might have satisfied his curl
osity to know the reason by as
Stunning that some horses had better
constitutional powers of endurance than
others, OF he might have gone off on a
false scent and have end avored to
classify the fat and the lean, the untir-
ing and the 500 wearied, according to
color, possibly discovering that horses
of this color were mostly in good, Of
that color mostly il bad condition; but
it Just occurred to him to observe the
forms OF the horses so differently af-
fected by. their work and he was at
once struck with the fact to which ref
erence has been already made, that the
horses which lost flesh all had high
backs. Every time he noticed this, he
put to himself the question, .'tWhy?"
But the discovery OF a sufficient answer
cost him much time and trouble. At
length the idea Of the arch flashed
across his brain as the happy solution Of
his %perplexing question; and this was
confirmed by the discovery that the
horse which could best draw q weight
was least able to bear a weight upon it's
back, while the horse unable to feac
the strain of draft could Leaf the other
any day in carrying a weight. The
line af the vertebrr, he found, indicates
the sort of work for which tie horse is
fitted. If it is high, the weight must
be on the top, to press it together;
if low, the pres ure must be from be-
low, for the same reason. So, if a high
backed horse were to try to push a
heavy weight back, the spine, already
bent in the wrong direction for the pur-
pose, is bent to a still higher arch, the
arch is opened and the power lost. The
low-backed horse, on the contrary, can
push back almost any weight, for the
pressure is brought to bear upon the
under-part, which, in his case, is the
convex part of the arch, thus strength
ening it. A downward curvature, there
fore, is the best form of spine for a
draft horse, so that when he bends his
body for a pull, Or when his body is
necessarily forced into a heap by the eff
fort to push back a weight, the force of
the movement does not escape (if we
may put it SOY, through a yielding arch.
For q proof of the principle, MI. Dick
enson proposes that a high backed and
a low-backed horse should be put to
the plow side by side. and the expert
menter observe whether the high back
does not bend higher in the work, and
the low back remain in its ordinary po.
sition. The back which bends is the
back which is weak for that sort of Ia
bor.-Nationat Liye-StocE Journal.