■'2^0 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



that the relative demand for horses in Connecticut would be 

 just about the same as it is in New York. As a rule, the 

 horses that are furnished to meet the demand on the farms 

 very largely come from the great ranges of the west. Those 

 of you who have had experience, those of you who watch the 

 markets, will agree that we can raise a better horse in these 

 eastern states, a horse that will sell for more money in any 

 good market, a horse that will live more years and do more 

 work, either on the road or on the farm, than can be raised in 

 most sections of the west from which many of our horses are 

 brought. Wisconsin can grow a pretty good horse. Kentucky 

 would not admit that she took a back seat. There are, how- 

 ever, climatic and soil conditions that enable us to grow, as a 

 rule, much better horses than can be grown upon the great 

 ranges for shipment into these eastern states. I know that 

 there are concerns all through the middle west which make 

 a business, and it is a profitable business, of buying up rough 

 horses for shipment east, buying up horses which are diseased, 

 horses which are vicious, horses which have formed bad habits, 

 and horses which are not worth twenty-five dollars, — make a 

 business of buying such horses as that and shipping them 

 into the eastern states for the use of our farmers. Their 

 only desire is to get those horses fat, and after getting them 

 fat, they are loaded into cars in good shape, and in the hands 

 of some trained horseman are sold out to our farmers and to 

 men in our cities and towns for driving purposes. Those 

 horses, you know as well as I do, never stand up well. Many 

 of those horses have traits of character which make them 

 entirely unfit for use on farm work or in the highway. I 

 can cite a case which happened in our own community, where 

 a man bought for use on his farm a bunch of six horses. They 

 were horses that came from the west, and which he purchased 

 to help till that farm. In eight months there was only one 

 horse out of the six that he could hitch into a buggy and 

 presume to drive with any satisfaction. I could stand here 

 and cite cases of that kind for hours, but suffice it to say that 

 when you buy a western horse you buy a cat in a bag. 



Now I said that there were conditions here which enabled 

 us to breed a better horse than could be brought from the 

 western states. If you doubt that statement, I wish you 



