It is noteworthy as proof of our dependence on this class of horse that, even when commerce and agriculture have been passing through a period of depression, at times when customers at any price even for the best classes of other live stock have been difficult to find, heavy draught horses suitable for town work have always remained in brisk demand at remunerative prices. Within the last few decades, too, new and important markets have been opened in all parts of the world. The United States of America took many of our best Shire horses every year until the introduction of prohibitive import tariffs; these naturally administered a severe check to the trade; but there is good reason to believe that the present year (1898) has witnessed a revival. Our best European customers now are the Germans; and of more remote buyers, the breeders of the Argentine Republic. It must be stated, in connection with what has been said on a previous page concerning the importance of studying pedigrees, that foreign buyers, though ready to pay large sums for our best, will possess themselves of the best only. Their object is to perpetuate the Shire breed pure, and also to improve the bone, size and substance of native breeds; and with this purpose in view they are invariably most exacting on the points of pedigree and soundness. They know that good pedigree and soundness are essential, and require that their purchases shall not only be registered in the Stud Book, but shall be able to show the clearest record of descent; such record shows that the qualities of the individual horse are hereditary, and may be relied on as transmissible to its progeny. Important testimony to the value of the Shire Horse will be found in a report issued some few years ago by the Canadian Government. It includes portion of a letter from Mr. R. S. Reynolds, M.R.C.V.S., Veterinary Inspector to the Corporation of Liverpool, and a well-known judge of and writer on Draught Horses. Mr. Reynolds, after writing fully on draught horses generally, concludes his remarks as follows:--“My judgment is entirely in favour of the Shire, as the one best calculated to procreate a breed--suited for the purposes of heavy draught--from smaller and lighter mares.” He assigns as his reason the fact that the size and bone of the average Shire are superior to those of any other description of horse; and further because there is presumptive evidence that the increased frame and bone of the other draught breeds are due to the infusion of Shire horse blood. Mr. Reynolds also strongly asserts his belief that, the original type of every other draught breed being of much lighter build than the existing race, there will be marked tendency in the progeny of such breeds to revert to the original form. Not only when these interbreed will this tendency appear, but when crossed with mares of other blood deficient in bone, degeneration will be still more rapid. [Illustration: BLYTHWOOD CONQUEROR.]