FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 145 



went to heavy expense in their development and improvement. In 

 many ways they are a desirable class of horses. The results so far ob- 

 tained in breeding them in this country have not been up to what I 

 expected. But this may come from the class of sires imported, or that 

 the mares bred to them have not been of the right stamp. The English 

 Hackney has many warm friends and a great many detractors. I think 

 for the purposes he is used in England, a horse that can be ridden or 

 driven in a trap by the wealthy classes, who want a smart, up-standing, 

 high-stepping animal, with a well-shaped body and stylish head and 

 neck, the Hackney is all right. He will also sell to the smart class in 

 our eastern cities who wish to follow English styles, but as a business 

 horse I consider him inferior to either of' the others named. His ex- 

 cessive action will knock his feet to pieces on the hard pavements, 

 and he has not the speed at the trot to recommend him to the American 

 driver. I have been watching the reports of the class of horses driven 

 on the speedways and boulevards of the cities of New York, Boston, 

 Philadelphia and Chicago, and if there is a single Hackney in use the 

 fact is never mentioned by the newspaper reporters who furnish us 

 with descriptions of the double teams and single drivers that are driven 

 by the wealthy people of those cities. 



The American trotter has his weak points as well as the other 

 breeds. They come largely from his popularit3^ Bred mostly for 

 speed, anything that had speed was bred to, and if the progeny 

 was only fast, no matter how deficient he might be in conforma- 

 tion, style, action or size, he would bring a good price. Under 

 such a system as this no wonder we had a miserable lot of runts 

 and ill-shaped animals that become unsalable and worthless when the 

 boom in the business exploded. The past eight years, with its limited 

 market and demand for a better class of horses, has done much to 

 improve the trotter. There has been a great weeding out of the plugs 

 and runts, and at the horse shows in the large cities he is now a 

 strong, and frequently successful, competitor, with the best of the for- 

 eign breeds in the coach and driving classes, while in speed at his gait 

 he is the champion of the world. It is the draft horses, such as the 

 Percheron, Shire and Clydesdale, and the American trotter, that are fill- 

 ing the foreign demand, and the prices they are now selling for affords 

 a good margin of profit for those who are engaged in breeding them. 

 As a market for what is raised is an essential for the successful prose- 

 cution of any business, there is every prospect, in the expanding demand 

 for American horses, that the future promises even greater rewards 

 for the man who raises good ones than the present. 



In looking over the reports of the Chicago market for the past few 

 weeks what impressed me most was the number of foreign buyers pres- 

 ent and the classes of horses they were taking. One man from Iowa had 

 fitted up fourteen head of drafts, which he had been feeding for some 

 months, and they sold in Chicago for an average of |219.64. They 

 were Shires and Percherons, and ranged in weight from 1,900 to 2,300 

 pounds. Another bunch from Illinois averaged 1,850 pounds and were 

 models in conformation and bone, and sold for a total of |2,300, an 

 average of |230 per head, the best price for such a bunch this year. 

 In this lot were three chestnuts, averaging 1,850 pounds, and so closely 

 matched that they could hardly be distinguished, which sold to one 

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