236 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the number we now have. Now don't be alarmed at this 

 statement, for I repeat this assertion, and it makes no manner 

 of dilFerence to me who takes the opposite : We don't need 

 in the State of Maine, in our present undeveloped condition, 

 over 50,000 horses, and not one of them a " track trotter." 

 Three-fourths of the horses in the State to-daj will never pay 

 their owners twenty-five per cent, upon the cost of raising. 

 Why? From the very fact that there has been no judicious 

 system pursued, except by a very few, in this branch of 

 husbandry. 



The fast horse mania has fastened itself upon us like a 

 nightmare, not confining itself to the young, or the sporting 

 man, but it has swept over our State like an epidemic, slay- 

 ing its victims on the right hand and on the left, drawing 

 many of our best farmers and business men into its vortex. 

 Scores and hundreds of our farms which fifteen years ago 

 could show from two to ten fat steers and oxen which were 

 ready money any day in the year, with a good dairy of cows 

 and a thrifty flock of sheep, to-day can boast of one, or two 

 at most, neglected and half-starved cows, (the only horned 

 CJJttle on the farm,) with no sheep, because they had been 

 sold to pay the taxes. But the farmer can show from three 

 to ten horse kind, whose boasted ancestors trotted in the 

 thirties, and he is hoping they are going to trot sometime, 

 and if they do, he can lift the mortgage that he has had to 

 put on the old homestead to raise money since the cattle were 

 sold. 



Farmers of Aroostook, profit by the sad experience of 

 your brothers in the older portion of the State. Breed less 

 horses. Use the same sound judgment that you do in breed- 

 ing cattle and sheep. Let size, style and the general good 

 qualities that are combined to make up a useful horse, be the 

 ideal to breed from, and if the horse you raise can travel ten 

 miles per hour, it is fast enough for all practical purposes. 



The adaptability of the different breeds to different locali- 

 ties and wants, the breeding and rearing of the same, is a 

 question of vital importance. He who has had the credit of 



