BREEDING AND RAISING COLTS. 211 



duced with almost absolute certaint}', and withall the most profitable 

 horse for farmers to raise in my opinion, are size, symmetry, color and 

 disposition. Size is demanded in nearly every class of horses now 

 and will continue to be so, and size will almost invariably sell a horse 

 at a paying price. Symmetr}', or that conformation combining 

 beauty of carriage, style, action and frictionless gait, is another 

 valuable quality to be sought for. Color, — "A good horse is said to 

 be the best color," but I prefer a good color for the best horse 

 especially when it can be had as well as not. Color can be bred 

 with almost unvarying certainty, and adds to the value of the animal 

 when it is of a desirable kind. A good disposition is an indispen- 

 sable quality in any horse. Without it you cannot have a good 

 horse ; and 3'et disposition is largely the creature of habit. In other 

 words a vicious disposition can be toned down and made kind and 

 mild by kind treatment, and just as well the kindest horse can be 

 made into the ugliest brute, but it takes a brute or a fool to do it. 



With such a mare as above described coupled with a stallion 

 possessing like qualities and being also a speed performer and 

 producer of speed in his progeny, colts may be raised upon our 

 farms that will return better profits than any other product in the 

 live stock line. 



All here will agree with me that speed is the most valuable quality 

 of the equine race — most valuable because it sells for most in the 

 market. Therefore wheu 3'ou have obtained the sixteen-band colt, 

 of good finish, desirable color, lofty action, and that ','^can go along 

 a little," as horsemen say, you have an article that there is au active 

 and growing demand for, that it is profitable to raise, and that can 

 just as easily be raised as the little, ill-proportioned, fiddle-gaited 

 things that have in so manj' cases proved a disappointment and a 

 source of disgust to their owners, and which have been to a great 

 extent the cause of bringing horse-breeding into disrepute with 

 many of our best farmei's. Yet what can be expected when old, 

 crippled, under-sized mares, after having passed the period of 

 usefulness for any other purpose, are turned to breeding and are 

 bred to stallions as inferior as themselves, but disappointment and 

 loss? 



Now, brother farmers, don't understand me as recommending 

 horse-trotting, or the training of every colt you raise to the end of 

 making a trotter of him, nor of making speed the prime end of your 

 breeding venture. But aim to produce the large, stylish gentleman's 



