When awarding prizes for the best managed farm, the judges appointed by the Royal Agricultural Society of England are instructed to consider--
“General Management with a view to profit,” so that any breed of live stock which leaves a profit would help a competitor.
Only a short time ago a Warwickshire tenant farmer told his landlord that Shire horses had enabled himself and many others to attend the rent audit, “with a smile on his face and the rent in his pocket.”
Most landlords are prepared to welcome a tenant in that state, therefore they should continue to encourage the industry as they have done during the past twenty-five years.
Wars come to an end--the “Thirty Years’ War” did--so let us remember the Divine promise to Noah after the flood, “While the earth remaineth seedtime and harvest … shall not cease,” Gen. 8:22. As long as there is sowing and reaping to be done horses--Shire horses--will be wanted.
“Far back in the ages The plough with wreaths was crowned; The hands of kings and sages Entwined the chaplet round; Till men of spoil disdained the toil By which the world was nourished, And dews of blood enriched the soil Where green their laurels flourished: Now the world her fault repairs-- The guilt that stains her story; And weeps; her crimes amid the cares That formed her earliest glory. The glory, earned in deadly fray, Shall fade, decay and perish. Honour waits, o’er all the Earth Through endless generations, The art that calls her harvests forth And feeds the expectant nations.”
Bardon Extraordinary, champion gelding, 65, 78
Bury Victor Chief, champion in 1892 … 68, 69
Champion’s Goalkeeper, champion in 1913 and 1914 … 67, 104
Freeman-Mitford, Mr., now Lord Redesdale, 62
Halstead Royal Duke, champion in 1909 … 68, 83
Henderson’s, Sir Alexander, successes in 1898 … 64
Hitchin Conqueror, London champion, 1891, 62
Importations from Flanders and Holland, 53, 57
Judges at London Shire Shows, 1890-1915 … 87
Lady Victoria, Lord Wantage’s prize filly, 17
Rokeby Harold, champion in 1893 and 1895 … 60, 66, 68
“The Great Horse,” Sir Walter Gilbey’s book, 14, 51, 54
VINTON & COMPANY, LTD., 8, BREAM’S BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON, E.C.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shire Horse in Peace and War, by J. Albert Frost