University of Edinburgh Archive and Manuscript Collections

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Fincastle requests to visit Ewart to see his Highland ponies as he is interested in the improvement of existing Highland breeds and their utilisation for military purposes.

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Willoughby, who signs himself 'Middleton', writes concerning his Highland ponies which went from him last year for the War. He reports that the ponies, now based in the Dardanelles, are all faring well, except the pony by Ewart's stallion, which has been killed by a shell. Willoughby is now breeding hunters from Highland ponies, using a thoroughbred horse 'Red Eagle'.

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Forsyth recommends that Ewart consider publishing his report on Highland ponies through the Congested Districts Board. He assumes that his memo on the Antrim horse has reached Ewart.

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Cecil thanks Ewart for the offer of a terrier, which he accepts. He states that he had travelled to Kingairloch to see a two year-old horse out of a pure Highland mare as well as a brown breed of 'a very old kind of Scottish Terrier'.

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Cecil agrees with Fincastle's remarks that the cross-bred horses for the crofters should maintain quality as well as increase size and comments upon various mutual correspondents. He states that he met a man called Scott who is going to send two Highland ponies and 'Braemore' and comments that the ponies on the east side of Skye appear to be identical to those on the Isle of Rum.

Scope and Contents Cecil is puzzled that Ewart mixed Spanish and horse blood and produced a Celtic pony, as he would have thought the mix would have produced the Island pony. He reports that Ritchie is annoyed that his neighbours prefer to use a crofters' pony to the Arab breed. He has written to Forsyth asking him to let the pony 'Atholl' to stand at the head of the Monkstadt stud (the experimental farm of the Congested Districts Board) on the Isle of Skye. He writes that he saw the best Highland ponies he...

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McLeod reports that all except one of his half-Arabs were sold, although they did not fetch as much money as the Skye foals.

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Dykes offers his opinions on what horses are best to cross with, choosing the modern Hackney and an Arab Highland cross. He says he will inform Ewart about the white maned mare which belongs to a carting contractor whose stables are in Portobello.

There is also a copy, in Dykes' hand, of the programme for the Highland and Agricultural Society, Inverness Show, 1839 and a copy of a letter to Dykes on behalf of Lord Lovat about a pony stallion 'Alan Kingsburgh'.

Scope and Contents Contains: 'Ponies', The Spectator, 27 October 1900; 'The Highland Pony: Revival of a Neglected Equine Breed', by J. Fairfax Blakeborough, The Scotsman, 6 September 1907; 'The Country House: Horses for the Territorial Army', The Field, 15 February 1908; 'The National Horse...