No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF ACKICULTURE. 819 



All (hose breeds mu.st conform to the standard, first of all; some 

 conform more closely Uian others; others depart a liltle bit from 

 the extreme dratt standard. While Ave have him on the scieen, I 

 will say that he is not only a draft horse but he repre.sents the 

 draftiest of all the draft breeds, namely, the Shire. This stallion 

 sold for $]2,0t)0 and is supposed to be the best Shire horse shown 

 in this country, and he has won prizes in England before he came 

 here. I have heard men say they wouldn't breed to a Shire. I 

 would breed to a Shire; I would consider it a privilege to breed 

 to this horse and would pay a good big fee to do it and buy a 

 lot of horses of the other breed;i to get to him if possible. The 

 characteristics we want to seek in the Shire breed, that we get 

 in the Shire breed, and we don't went to go to a Shire if we 

 don't want those characteristics, are first of all, scale; there is 

 no other horse that will average as great a weight as representatives 

 of the Shire breed, or as much bone and substance and muscleing 

 as the Shire. There is no breed but one that will average as mas- 

 sive and drafty a body as the Shire. If we want those things we 

 must go to the Shire to get them. But every breed has certain 

 characteristics, characteristics not as desirable as those I have 

 named, and it is as essential that a breeder shall know the unde- 

 sirable characteristics as the desirable; and it is only when a breeder 

 recognizes one as well as the other that he can begin to improve 

 them along the desirable lines, but just as long as a man thinks 

 the stock he is producing is all right, that man is going downhill 

 instead of up, but it is the man all the time on the lookout for 

 the little defects and trying to stop them who is the man that is 

 all the time raising the standard and getting up. 



Now grossness in size and quality do not go together ; it is a good 

 deal easier to get a pony well shaped than it is to get a horse 

 that weighs 2,400 pounds. When we take his great weight and scale 

 as fundamental, then we have got to make some concession and 

 must expect him to be a little plainer perhaps in the head ; although 

 this horse is especially good in that respect, we have got to have 

 some better. I learned that lesson in Crawford county and never 

 have forgotten it. A man brought a Shire horse he had just bought 

 to show to a number of us and he was a very ordinary looking 

 two-year-old but did have pretty good bone. One man says "Why 

 did you buy that colt?" He says, "I wanted bone." He was a very 

 hairy legged horse and another man took exception to that hair, and 

 another says, "You can't get bone without a bit of fetter." That 

 happened to hit me and I have kept it in mind and made my observa- 

 tions along that line ever since. I admit that a nice clean legged 

 horse looks better, but I am absolutely certain of the statement that 

 you cannot get the bone without a certain amount of fetter, and 

 rather than have the absence of bone and what goes with it, I'd get 

 the fetter and get it fine. I don't want these great big shaggy legs, 

 but nice fine fetter on a draft horse makes him look as if he had 

 timber under him, and the draft horse men who know this and know 

 the game best are the men who don't take that fetter otf their legs, 

 so you have got to expect a little grossness in a horse of this kind, 

 you have got to look out and see that you get all bone and no 

 quality otherwise. He is the horse that gives us our scale and 

 draftiness and it has been demonstrated very well on the Chicago 

 market that the highest class of geldings, as they run, especially 



