Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1874 — The Back and Loins of a Horse. [ARTICLE]

The Back and Loins of a Horse.

When a hof'se’s back is short the Joins will be found to be broad and strong — what* is Called good; a circumstance arising from the circularity of the chest and the breadth of the hips—these four formations, viz., shortness of back, circularity of chest, breadth of hips and strength of loins, generally being found in combination. It is a great. matter that a horse should have good loins, and when these are associated with a long back and the requisite length and substance ofshind-quarters we may take it for granted that the animal possesses both speed and endurance. Look at the hares %nd rabbits, greyhounds, deer, and such like animals and note what thickness of loins and length and muscularity of hind limbs they alb exhibit, while their fOYe parts amount to hardly anything in comparative substance. It is impossible that a horse with thin, nar-

row loins chn last; the moment his feet sink in the dirt that moment he will fail. It is the good loin that can—and the only point that can—compensate for hollowness of back. When the loins are good, not length, not even hollowness of back, are to be accounted objectionable points. It is nonsense to pretend to prescribe that the back should be long or short, of this length or that; although we may, in a general way, fall in with the common description of what a back ought to be, and say “ that, to be a good one, it should sink a little below (behind) the withers ’and then run straight.” The back will be too large or too short, or (though, to the observer, of unusual longitude or shortness, still) of the proper length, depending upon the formation and dimensions of other parts with which, in strueture and action, it is associated. A long back would ill accord with short legs, defeated in their operation; a short back would not require long legs, they ■would do too much for it. We have, therefore, long-backed horses and shortbacked horses, and yet with backs of proper length; because the longitude, whatever it may be, is that which is the suitable length for the machine of which it forms a part. A very common, but not less, on that account, reprehensible custom among “Judges of horses,” is to find fault with a point, without any reference whatever to the generaL or particular conformation with which that point is consorted. Abstractedly considered, it may be out of proportion; but considered correlativcly, with ont-of-pro-portioned other parts in the same frame, it may be in the best proportion, or of such proportion as serves to compensate for faulty dimensions in other parts. A part most faultlessly fashioned and proportioned may —placed among certain other ill-formed or out-of-proportioned parts —appear itself to be the faulty piece in the fabric. In an animal body, as an machines made by man’s hands, the great object to be sought for is harmony between the constituent members; at the instant we are not hastily to condemn any apparent disproportion, lest, on critical examination, it should turn out to have been given for the purpose of compensation—to . make amends for some defective structure elsewhere, which may not at first sight have struck our attention. — Prairie Farmer.