It is still too common, though less so than formerly, to leave the foals unweaned, with the result that the mares so treated usually foal but once in two years. This wasteful plan is due to the difficulty of finding food for the weaned foals; but the attempted economy so completely defeats its own object that it cannot fail to die out.
In the beginning of last century we find the Highland Society’s report, already quoted, referring to “an absurd custom among the farmers of preserving for stallions ... the most unpromising of the young of the species”;[31] and very competent observers state in 1845 that “the ponies are now much smaller in size than they were thirty years ago, entirely owing to the fact that all the best and stoutest are exported, and stallions of the most puny size are allowed to go at large.”[32]
It would appear from this that the selective process by which the small size of the pony has been fixed and exaggerated was not, at this period, one deliberately and consciously promoted, but was contrary to the wishes of those who regarded the interest of the breed, and was the result of economic pressure which encouraged the export of the larger and more valuable ponies, leaving the smaller and cheaper stallions to be employed as stud animals. Larger and not smaller ponies were in point of fact desired; and the decline in size, which seems to have taken place at this period, was a consequence of the poverty and perhaps also of the short-sighted thrift of the crofting owners.
This fact, indeed, sets aside the argument of Mr Vero Shaw[33] and others, that the breed must always have been kept pure, because no cross could be used to improve it by reducing its size. The temptation to introduce alien blood came from the opposite motive—a desire to increase size; and when we read that in 1788 “a fine young horse of the Norway breed had perished in a marsh,”[34] we see that the materials for cross-breeding, as well as the motive to practise it, were actually in existence—the results probably remaining in the larger ponies now used for draught in Shetland.
It must be observed that a scarcity of really good stallions, probably arising from the same causes as formerly, is still the chief impediment to the improvement of the Shetland pony in his native home. But this cause no longer operates to reduce size, as fashion has created a demand for excessively small ponies, which tempts the poorer owners rather to sell than to keep them.
In 1865 we have the first record of an actual attempt to reduce the size of the pony, in the very interesting notes on Shetland pony breeding made by “The Druid” in ‘Field and Fern.’
GOING SOUTH.