Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 465 



likely to be ashamed, and there is nothing so distressing as to be 

 given the door in the show ring. I can testify to that, too. Show- 

 ing is for the expert, not for the ordinary farmer. There is not 

 much profit in showing horses unless you are a breeder or dealer 

 in pure-bred stock and are breeding and importing for sale. The 

 ordinary farmer can scarcely afford to indulge in the luxury. 



We breed our mares about thirty days after the foal comes. 

 Our observation has been that it is much safer to wait thirty days 

 and that we get a larger percentage of colts with less complicated 

 results than we do by breeding in nine days. Nature has had time 

 to resume her course and we get much more satisfactory and profit- 

 able results. Only infrequently have we bred a mare on, our farm 

 earlier than thirty days from the date of her foaling. 



Gentlemen, it is a most enchanting business, and if you are 

 so fortunate as to breed an international champion, you will have 

 to at once consult the hat maker, because you will need a larger 

 size. I had that experience, too. But it is worth while, it is an 

 achievement that is satisfying and will last, and I would not dis- 

 courage young farmers here in any manner, although my remarks 

 may have that tendency, from attempting the extreme in, the way 

 of horse production. It may come your way to breed a champion. 

 This mare of which Professor Trowbridge has spoken, Princess 

 Fortune, possibly the greatest draft mare ever produced in the 

 United States, and perhaps in the entire world, was a very insig- 

 nificant looking foal. She passed through a siege of distemper 

 that I thought had absolutely ruined her. In the fall time of 

 her foal year I had her hid away from the sight of visitors, for she 

 was not fit to be seen. Mr. Will Ade, of Indiana, came to my farm 

 and bought her sire and I offered her in with some others at $175, 

 and he refused to take her, so unattractive in appearance was she. 

 But recovering from this distemper she took a start in the spring 

 and with extra care, by fall time she had become a marvel and 

 never did she meet defeat from that time on until her stable com- 

 panion defeated her in the show ring at Chicago because she had 

 raised a foal and was not in, show condition. So you see a plain 

 farmer under ordinary conditions was able to produce this world 

 renowned Clydesdale mare, and it is possible for any farmer here 

 in Missouri to duplicate that achievement. You will pardon me 

 in referring to this personal matter, because I believe that in all 

 my life's activity I have never done anything of which I have been 

 so proud, and in which I am so justified in that pride. 



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