A Country Fair.
The picture by Jacques Laurent Agasse, from which the illustration has
been taken, affords us a glimpse of an ancient English institution which
is fast passing away. The work was painted in the year 1819, when the
country fair or market held a very important place in the economy of
rural England, and this picture has special interest for stock breeders,
since its most conspicuous figure is a grand example of the old English
breed of Black Shire horses.
In Sir Walter Gilbey’s work on “The Great Horse,” a letter is quoted
from Oliver Cromwell offering “sixty pieces for that Black you won (in
battle) at Horncastle, for my son has a mind to him.” In those days the
“Black” was before all things a war horse, and there is ample evidence
to prove that it was regarded as the best strain among the heavy breeds.
Agasse’s picture refers to a more peaceful era; but the Black Shire
horse was still the breed most prized in England. William Marshall,
writing in 1790, tells us that the Black Carthorse in his day was
extensively bred in the Midlands; and though he personally preferred a
smaller and more compact horse, on short, clean legs, and was, moreover,
a convinced advocate of the ox-team for the plough and draught work, he
could not deny that the breeding of Black Shires was profitable. As
showing how the best authorities differ, it is worth noticing that
Arthur Young, at about the same period, mentions the “large Black old
English horse” as one of the only two varieties of carthorse deserving
of mention. The other was the sorrel-coloured Suffolk Punch.
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