Report of Missouri Farmers* Week. 423 



the "Foolish House." The "common or garden" mare, and the 

 ordinary scrub cross-roads "studhorse" have done more to ruin their 

 handlers than, any undertaking they ever tackled, and have dealt 

 the whole horse family of America a "solar plexus punch" from 

 which it will be long in recovering. What can we expect from a 

 combination of general worthlessness and hopeless mediocrity? 



The governments of most nations have endeavored, either 

 steadily or spasmodically — always unsuccessfully — to "improve the 

 breed of horses" in their various countries. No government can 

 succeed at any such undertaking any more than it can insure the 

 production of choice cattle or swine. Successful breeding is wholly 

 a matter of the man ; of individual enterprise, ability, patience and 

 persistency. The motor cars have finally done for the horse what 

 no promoters, public or private, have effected, or ever could have 

 effected. They have shown the public where the horse stood in 

 the scheme of things; they have proved that he must stand upon 

 his own bottom as an individual; they have sent thousands and 

 thousands of equine trash to the sausage mill and the bone yard; 

 they have made it impossible for anything to find favor but the 

 best, and consequently made it wholly idle to produce or to offer 

 anything but the best; they have caused the market value of that 

 "best" to reach figures never before dreamed of, and they have 

 so narrowed the horse's field of usefulness that there is no en- 

 couragement for a farmer to try to breed anything but what he can 

 handle himself at a profit until he can sell it. No more do farmers 

 and their boys handle trotting or pacing colts, train trotters, etc., 

 to their inevitable loss — they should stick to the drafter, or to the 

 sturdy, probably trotting-grade general-purpose horse of weight 

 and substance, that earns his keep at any work, pulls a buggy a fair 

 pace, does not disgrace a saddle, and finds a ready market at a 

 fair price. 



There never was a breeder yet who, if he failed, was unwilling 

 to acknowledge that if he had had better horses, and had fed them 

 really well all their lives, he could not have made money at the 

 business. He knew the facts but he would not act upon them. 

 He was generally a "cow" man or a "sheep" man, raising horses 

 as a side line, and getting it where he hit the Christmas turkey, 

 because he would try to make a square peg fit a round hole. You 

 all know lots of these people — whatever you do, don't join that 

 brigade. 



