1074 New Yoek State Beeeders' Association 



THE TYPE OF HORSE NEW YORK STATE FARMERS SHOULD RAISE 



Fkancis M, Wake, Bkookline, Mass. 



We meet here to-day to discuss the future of the most impor- 

 tant clement in successful farming — the horse. 1 think 1 am 

 well within the facts when referring thus to the horse — for 

 without him, or his relatives, the mule and donkey, as an item, 

 no farming operations have ever been or probably ever will be 

 either broadly possible or largely profitable. 



It is an astounding fact that this animal is the only species 

 which the average farmer does not produce, both for his own 

 usage, and in the nature of a cash crop. Be your branches of 

 agriculture what they may, you one and all use horses to some 

 extent, yet I will venture to say that among those assembled here 

 this afternoon, there are but a moiety who produce the animals 

 on any large scale. 



The county is being clearly swept of equine garbage — it is 

 up to us to see that it so remains. Xo man can atford to allow 

 his name to be associated with anything but excellence in any 

 breed of animal, especially the horse. This was always true, 

 heretofore, but it is trebly so to-day. 



If one is by instinct and taste a " cow " man, or a " sheep " 

 man, or a " poultry " man ; if horse, to him, is nothing but a 

 means to the end of labor — leave horse-breeding alone. If you 

 enter upon the undertaking with the intention of " raising a colt " 

 from old Fanny, or Jenny, or Molly, chiefly because these family 

 relics are too decrepit for any other purpose, pray leave the under- 

 taking to those more broadly intentioned. The men who breed an 

 old wreck of an undersized mare to some mongrel, or short-bi-eed 

 cross-roads stud-horse, just because the one is good for nothing 

 else, and the other stands at a cheap fee, desei-ve all the mis- 

 fortune they are courting — and may it come to them good and 

 plenty, for they do the whole country incalculable injury. 



Breed the best or nothing. Surely self-esteem should prompt 

 any man to do as much. The curse of the country, and the 

 ruination of the horse industry is the flood of little scrubby, 

 weedy, course, unsound, half-broken rips and jades overwhelming 

 all the markets in America — brutes which bring disgust to the 



