420 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



horse. These, it seems to me, are five very good reasons for the 

 breeding of draught horses. No man on the Allegheny mountains 

 should try to breed draught horses. They can better be grown 

 where everything is succulent, and a second crop of pasture for 

 them. 



There is no horse in the market for which there is such a steady 

 demand as for the coach horse. In times of depression like this, 

 there is no demand for draught horses. When business is not there, 

 the draught horse is not wanted. In coach horses the chief difficulty 

 seems to be to find a pair that will be harmonious in every par- 

 ticular. Only people who have tried this can tell, and this, I think, 

 explains the difference between what is first paid for the horse, 

 and the price at which he is finally sold. I have been trying for 

 three nionths to get a coach pair, and I have gone the length and 

 breadth of the State to look at many pairs, without finding what 

 I was looking for. Most of these people thought they had exactly 

 what would fill the requirements, but it only shows the great lack 

 of information on the part of the farmer. Now, if a man has the 

 proper fences, and does not work his mares too hard, and knows 

 the standard of a good coach horse, this is the kind for which there 

 is a steady demand at good prices. 



Now, the next type I am afraid to discuss, for fear of being 

 misunderstood. A horseman said to me last night that the trotter 

 is the curse of every county that he has ever been taken into. I 

 want to ask you how many men you know who have succeeded in 

 making money as breeders of trotters? It is a rich man's business. 

 "V\'hen a man says they are farmer's horses, he doesn't know what 

 he is talking about. They require too much finish, and too much 

 hot blood to be of any use on the farm. The average man can use 

 anything from a wagon horse, to a high class coach horse, but he 

 does not want to handle stable horses. Up at State College a few 

 weeks ago, the question was asked why, if the farmers in the West 

 could make money on the stable horse, the farmers in the East 

 could not do the same thing? Now, it seems to me that the answer 

 is this. In the West weight is the standard. The precedent was 

 established in 1851 in Ohio, and it was weight ever since. Two 

 years previous (in 1849) in New York State was bred the first 

 Hamiltonian sire, and he set the standard for speed in the East, 

 so that today in the West weight is the standard; they breed horses 

 that will weigh 3,200 pounds, and a few that will weigh 4,000 

 pounds; in the East, speed is the standard; this speed was set 

 at 2.10. or something like that, and we have been trying to maintain 

 or improve on that ever since. Draught horses are the product 

 of the West, where weight is the standard; the speed horse is the 

 craze with us, and that is the reason every farmer thinks he must 

 go to breeding trotters. A man recently made the statement to 

 me that New York is a veterinary hospital for sprains, ringbone, 

 spavin and kindred diseases. They are not due to one generation, 

 but it is the result of breeding these fine horses from one generation 

 to another. They take the finely finished, hot-blodded speedy horse, 

 and hitch him to the grocery wagon, and drive him with a heavy 

 load over the mountainous roads of New York, and this ring-boned, 

 spavined animal is the result. 



