2^2 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



there is a place, of course, in our economy, so far as the weight 

 of that horse is concerned, but it is not the weight of the horse 

 alone that we must consider. It is the horse that is bred for a 

 special purpose, and I would like to draw the line at 1,150 

 pounds. If I was going to breed my horses for carriage driv- 

 ing, I would breed them at a hundred pounds heavier, because 

 that horse will wear just as many years and do more work and 

 do it better. If you have studied the markets you will find 

 that while certain types of horses are in demand, yet for the 

 general purpose horse you seldom find much, if any, call for 

 one over the weight that I have spoken about. That is about 

 where they run. Now I want to say to you, my friends, that 

 we cannot afford to grow horses in any such way. We want a 

 horse that will sell for more money. There is no use in breed- 

 ing a horse that nobody wants. The general purpose horse, or 

 a horse that is supposed to be able to be used for draft purposes, 

 farm work, or for carriage driving is a failure. If you are 

 going to buy a farm horse, you want a farm horse, and not a 

 horse that is too light for your work. If you are going to buy 

 a carriage horse, you want a carriage horse, and not a great 

 heavy animal that is fit only to be used in a dump cart. So 

 we will cut the general purpose horse off. We cannot afiford 

 to bother with them so far as breeding them as a type is con- 

 cerned. 



Now there is another class of horse that some of you may 

 be interested in. I do not suppose you ever breed them 

 down here. That is the trotting horse. I think in the history 

 of breeding there never has been a greater success, or greater 

 skill shown than in breeding the American trotting horse. 

 When you come to think of it, it is wonderful. Just think 

 how the records have been lowered within our memory. I 

 remember when I was a young man of seeing a picture of 

 Flora Temple, with a record of 2! 18 1-4, and underneath was 

 an article written by one of our leading horsemen, who 

 contended that that was the limit; that Flora Temple had 

 established the limit of speed possible for the trotting horse 

 to reach, but you know that there is many a man today who 

 can hitch up a horse to drive to church or to the post office 

 which can nearly equal that speed. They have kept on 

 lowering the record until they are down pretty well to the two 



