No. (J. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. »l 



owes a lot to the foundation and I do not want to detract one bit 

 from the credit that belongs to the Frenchman for the production of 

 this almost universal draft horse; but on the other hand we must see 

 in this horse certain characteristics that go right back to his founda- 

 tion blood, and much less altered by man's tampering than in the 

 case of the other two breeds I have shown you. 



Here is a horse that has his foundation away back in early times, 

 in the first place, in the so-called Flanders horse, a horse of cold 

 blood, characterized by his bulk and coarseness, his black color, the 

 amount of hair he develops on his legs, tufts at his knee, tufts at the 

 point of his hocks and even a mustache at his lips; very slow and 

 awkward in his movements. That was the foundation. On that 

 top course, first, accidentally and afterward with malice aforethought, 

 were made infusions of color through blood. The accidental way in 

 which that occurred was in consequence of invasion back in the days 

 of the Saracen invasion, the barbarians came north into France and 

 were overpowered and their mounts, which were largely stallions, fell 

 into the hands of the victors and were distributed among the French 

 soldiers and taken back into the country and became the leaven in 

 the "horse stock of that country. The Crusaders accomplished the 

 same thing, and after that, when the influence of this blood was 

 demonstrated, systematic importations of oriental blood were made 

 into France and while there are no oriental stallions close up in the 

 pedigrees of our Percherons today, if you go back you will find they 

 go back to Jean La Blanc. This horse has a finer breed of head 

 than any draft horse, finer ears, a fuller, clearer eye, more sharp de- 

 finition of features. We see it in his disposition and temperament. 

 He is active, snappy. We see it in the character of his bones. The 

 trouble with the Percheron bone, nine times out of ten, is that there 

 is not enough of it, it is too fine, and we see it in the character of his 

 hoof. He has got a hoof that comes from the hot blooded horse. 



And, finally, what can he do. The Percheron horses are the most 

 versatile, they can do the greatest variety of things, and there are a 

 great variety of types running through them. The old fashioned 

 Percheron horse is a general purpose horse. If you could see some 

 of these old fashioned Percherons, or pictures of them, I think you 

 would find your ideal for the general purpose horse, but when the de- 

 mand came for bigger horses, they had to put more cold blood into 

 this stock and bring up the size and scale, but they have done that 

 very skillfully and have retained the features of the old oriental 

 stock. So here is a breed that, while he owes a lot to the men who 

 have bred him, we can still trace his ancestry in the general charac- 

 teristics he manifests to us to-day. 



Why is the Percheron horse more numerous in this country than 

 all other breeds combined? Is it because he had the earliest start? 

 No, it is because he made the first hit; he was the horse that the 

 farmer took up as the one thing that suited him in the way of a 

 horse, and from way back in 1851, the days of Louis Napoleon, until 

 to-day, the Percheron horse has received the stamp of approval of 

 the farmer. This is the reason — he is a versatile horse, he can do 

 anything, and the Percheron stallion is just as versatile a breeder 

 as the Percheron horse is a performer. You breed a Percheron stal-^ 

 lion to almost any kind of a mare and you will get a market horse 

 of some sort. If he is spotted with light hairs, he will make a 



21—6—1915 



