In the remoter Islands, ponies are still to be seen carrying creels of peats: but even this is now an extinct use in most districts. The pure-bred pony in the Islands has never been a draught animal to any great extent; and with the introduction of wheeled conveyances its employment has almost entirely disappeared.
Another ancient use—in a sense a by-product—of the pony has also ceased. We find in the old laws of Shetland not merely prohibition to “ride, labour, or use any other man’s horse without liberty of the owner,” but also to “cut any other man’s horse—tail or main—under the pain of ten pounds.”[43]
Thus did the horse-owning fisherman protect the material of his lines. But this use of the pony became extinct even before the changes had set in which are relegating line-fishing to the region of dead industries.
CARRYING PEATS.
Yet, although the local employment of the pony is a thing of the past, its production remains a profitable part of Shetland farming.
The early records show very low prices for ponies. The ‘Statistical Account,’ 1845, places them at from £1, 10s. to £5; “The Druid,” in 1865, sets the value of horses at £7, and of mares at £5;[44] and even in 1871, when the coal-pits had been using Shetland ponies for twenty years, Cowie valued the horse at £8 to £10, and the mare at £3 to £5. Such prices bear no relation to those of recent years, when good stallions have realised from £18 to £20 for pit work, while better ponies, when fully pedigreed, command very much larger prices. At the earlier rates ponies can have yielded but a poor profit; but under recent conditions they must give a large return on the comparatively small cost of breeding and rearing them in Shetland; and this increasing profit encourages the hope that crofters and others in Shetland may be more energetic in the future than they have been in the past, in improving the pony which is one of the best assets of their Islands.
THE FETLAR PONY.
The Island of Fetlar contains, besides pure Shetland ponies, a distinctive breed of its own.