Missouri Draft Horse Breeders'' Association. 519 



mares is worth thirty-five dollars more. An Illinoisan will tell 

 you also that two jacks of equal value, one a Missourian and the 

 other an Illinoisan, that the former will get more business by far. 



The draft horse stock of any countr^^ is the foundation of 

 everything. Had you ever thought what breed of horses we 

 could get along best with if we were compelled to discard all the 

 rest? A neighbor told me last year he had. eighteen head of 

 horses, and should one die he would have to borrow a team to 

 drag it off with. Is that a dependable, profitable kind to care 

 for and feed high-priced feed to? 



The lighter breeds are all right, and they have their places 

 to fill, and everybody has to take his hat off to a finished saddle 

 horse, but how many farmers are capable of finishing one? The 

 man who gets the big prices we hear about for the light horse 

 isn't the farmer very often, but the dealer who grooms and edu- 

 cates him. I noticed an account of a dispersal sale a few weeks 

 ago of some magnificently bred trotters, and the average was 

 under $100. 



One of my neighbors had a sale two years ago, and a wean- 

 ling, a yearling and a two-year-old harness filly brought an 

 average of $71, while a two-year-old draft filly, not any better 

 for her kind, brought $165. 



W. J. Cunningham, Hartford, 111., gave $300 for a three- 

 year-old Percheron filly, and at his sale last year she at ten years 

 old with a month-old filly colt brought $600, and he had already 

 sold $2,375 worth of produce from her. I have a mare due to 

 foal in two weeks, bred to the grand champion Percheron stal- 

 lion, Carnot, and I have refused an offer of $500 for her colt at 

 weaning time. It is such things as those that caused us to 

 begin raising Percherons. 



Statistics show that the live stock farmers are making more 

 clear money and keeping their land up much better than the 

 grain farmers. If the population increases 21 per cent during the 

 next ten years as it did the past ten we must raise more from our 

 acres. Better farming and good draft horses go hand in hand, 

 for to raise more grain and hay and do it economically we must 

 plow deeper, cultivate more thoroughly, farm more intensively 

 and concentrate our labors by having one man do the work of 

 two by using modern implements. To do these things weight 

 in the collar is very essential. 



If we are raising horses successfully then we have a surplus 

 to sell, so the market should govern our breeding operations 



