Excerpt from The Great Horse: Or the War Horse: From the Time of the Roman Invasion Till Its Development Into the Shire Horse The early foundation stock from which investigation proves that our modern Shire horses are descended was brought to a high state of perfection for its special purpose, not only by the judicious introduction of foreign blood, but by wise enactments of the Legis lature. We find in the old Statute Books numerous Acts of Parliament which supported private skill and enterprise in the endeavour to improve an animal on which, it may fairly be said, the safety of the nation in no small measure depended. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.