No. (J. DEPARTIVIENT OF AGRICULTURE. 313 



tion — simply there is not the demand for horses and we firmly be- 

 lieve that with the return of normal business conditions and trafRc, 

 etc., incident to normal business activity, the horse will come back 

 to his own. I can further assure j^ou that those who know the 

 situation best and have an opportunity to follow it into the future, 

 are still pinning their faith to horses, so there is no reason why 

 we should feel any discouragment, and no reason why the horse 

 should not have consideralion on the i)rogram the same as other 

 farm products. 



You may also wonder what can be said about the draft breeds 

 that has not already been said, this being a very familiar topic. 

 It is my purppse, however, to discuss these breeds from a little 

 different angle. My object is to induce you, if possible, to study 

 the breeds with which you are engaged with a view of making 

 out what you can learn of their history, what possibilities may 

 lie before them in the future; that is, we can foretell best about 

 those things of which we can learn the most in history. I don't 

 know of any line of business where a man starts out with as little 

 foreknowledge as in the breeding of pure bred livestock. I do not 

 mean now simply the principles of breeding. A man may know 

 all about the principles of breeding and may be an authority on 

 heredity and principles of that sort, yet if he does not study the 

 history of the breed itself with which he expects to engage, he 

 is very much in the dark as to what he is doing and what can 

 be done. Therefore, I would like to take up the breeds of draft 

 horses. We have to limit our subject and limit it to them, and 

 1 would like to take up the breeds of draft horses with a view to bring- 

 ing out from a consideration of their history, what is inherent 

 in them and how, by a knowledge of their inherent characteristics, 

 we are better able to get the best out of them. It seems to me that 

 this is especially essential. 



I am going to show you some statistics a little later; I am not 

 going to burden you with them, but I have one slide that will show 

 what a dearth of pure bred stallions we have available for the breed- 

 ers in this State, or the country for that matter. This State is a 

 little worse off than some other states, and is better off than others, 

 but there is a dearth of pure bred stallions available to the breeders. 

 If this is the case, doesn't it behoove us to make the most use 

 of the blood available and the most judicious use — make the most 

 of it? And it is with that in view that I propose to discuss the 

 draft breeds. 



In the first place, what is a breed? I say a great many men 

 are breeding pure bred stock, and yet T believe T am safe in saying 

 that they don't know exactly what they are dealing with and it 

 will throw a great deal of light on some of the results they s^et 

 if they will just inquire and find out a little more about this thing 

 they are dealing with. They do not realize that they have the em- 

 bodiment of an hereditary force placed in their hands, and unless 

 they know the extent of that force, the characteristics carried on 

 by that force, they can accomplish very little in its direction. For 

 instance, a breeder of Angus cattle is very much disheartened, and 

 perhaps thinks somebody has put over a counterfeit nediorree on 

 him when he has bought a bull and gets a red calf. I have known 

 Angus breeders to become very much incensed because out of their 

 pure bred, as they supposed, black cattle, there is all of a sudden a 



