Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 445 



sales will show it. Within the last month I made the best Short- 

 horn sale made in ten years in Kansas and in the same month I 

 sold 51 head of Percheron horses, from suckling colts to grown 

 horses that averaged $600, and the best price for the Shorthorns 

 was a $175 average, so the draft horses outsold the cattle more 

 than three to one, but I want to say that the Shorthorn is going to 

 sell higher, and very soon, too. 



Somebody asked the question, how long will these horse prices 

 continue? I believe you can go on breeding draft horses. The 

 greatest problem that business men have to consider now in the 

 development of trade is power. You have a cinch on power. They 

 are building a dam at Keokuk and the object of that enterprise is to 

 create a tremendous amount of power, and that will be sold to 

 Kansas City, St. Joseph and all the cities in the country, and the 

 idea is to make power cheaper. But the greatest of all power is 

 horse power. 



I rode in the finest automobile that I was ever in in my life, 

 going over to the Robinson sale. It was a 60-horse power Pierce 

 Arrow car. It was a most elaborate thing. You men know that 

 is a sample of the equipment of that splendid breeding establish- 

 ment and the draft horses have made the money. I said to the 

 young man who was driving the car, "You seem to have a mag- 

 nificent car here." He had a 60-horse power machine, remember. 

 Thinking of the horse power of the thing got me to thinking about 

 power. Did you ever think of it, that even the electric engines, 

 tractors, motors, etc., are all rated by horse power. It was not only 

 the first power but the most important of all power, and it is first 

 of all in more ways than one. Horse power is the power that drives 

 the machinery of agriculture. 



If you were to stop the horse power that drives the machinery 

 of agriculture you would have no use for electric power, or of 

 railroads across our State. You would see the grass growing in 

 the streets of our cities and would witness the most desolate state 

 of affairs that you can imagine. I believe that just as the country 

 increases in population — we have one hundred millions of people to 

 feed, and all must be fed from these farms of ours — you will ap- 

 preciate the importance of horse power. 



While you people who are undertaking to breed a horse that 

 can furnish as much horse power as two mules or two saddle 

 horses, you are making two blades of grass grow where one grew 

 before. You are producing a horse that sells for twice as much 



