1883.] . QUESTION BOX. 243 



Mr. Ktrkham, A number of years ago, my father put it 

 around some nice Baldwin apple trees, six or eight inches 

 through, and it killed every one of them. 



Question. Is it of the greatest importance to the farmer 

 to breed horses for speed ? 



Mr. Wetherell. I think it is for the interest of the farm- 

 er to breed horses that he can sell for the highest price. If 

 it is speed that commands the highest price, then breed for 

 speed. 



Mr. Haet. Without any regard to the expense of breed- 

 ing and raising them ? 



Mr. Wetherell. The farmer is always to think of those 

 things when he is breeding. 



Mr. Allen. I fear that this lecture, excellent as it has 

 been, and containing the vast amount of information that it 

 does, with which we have been so much delighted, may have 

 the effect to induce some young farmer, by the statements 

 made of large sums of money wliich have been won by some 

 noted trotters, to invest his money in the attempt to breed 

 fast horses. I have had a little experience in this matter 

 myself, and I have seen others who have had some experi- 

 ence in it, and I am satisfied that where one man has suc- 

 ceeded in raising a trotter that has brought him a fair remu- 

 neration for his expenses, ten men have lost all the money 

 they put into it. It is not good policy for farmers to under- 

 take to breed trotters, for the reason that out of twenty well- 

 bred colts, that have their blood tracing back to some Arabian 

 horse over in England, and that have been bred right up to 

 the trotting mark, you will not get one that can trot in 

 less than three minutes ; and where you get one, it is uni- 

 formly tlie case that he has been trained by some expert to 

 trot in that time. I saw an article not long ago from Mr. 

 Bonner in reference to one of his horses, and he said if that 

 horse had not been shod with heavy toe-weights, it could not 

 have trotted in three minutes ; now it is going in 2.10. A 

 large per cent, depends upon training, shoeing, etc., and if 

 anybody supposes we are going to have a race of trotters in 



