146 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



person for |765, an average of |255 each. These houses were all taken 

 for export. On the same day a lot of drivers from Iowa, of Bashaw 

 blood, were sold and averaged |249 per head. Four of them brought 

 $300 per head. These horses were not speedy, nor trained for speed, 

 but sold for drivers and matched pairs. A good many of them went 

 to foreign buyers, mostly to English dealers, while the heavy horses 

 went to the continent. Ten head of them, taken for Hamburg, Germany, 

 are said to be the finest and highest priced lot of drafters ever t^ken 

 for export. 



On another day, at an advertised sale at the Chicago Stock Yards, 

 with a large number of trotting-bred horses on sale, the prices reached 

 by a number of them, which sold solely on their appearance, as they were 

 geldings, one named Eoyal King brought |1,650, and though purchased 

 by a Chicago party, a London dealer bid up to $1,600 for him. He is a 

 six-year-old bay gelding, sired by Jaywood, a son of Nutwood, brother 

 •of Maud S. He is described as a beautiful animal of the best coach 

 type, elegant in conformation and with splendid action. Others sold 

 from |250 to |875 per head, quite a number going to England, the home 

 of the Hackney. In fact the surprising manner in which the American 

 trotter is making his way in Great Britain and Europe is one of the 

 surprises of the past few years to European dealers and breeders. We 

 have Russian, Austrian, German and English buyers at every sale of 

 any importance, and there are breeding studs of American trotters 

 .established in Russia, Austria, Italy and France. At the recent Splan- 

 Newgas sale of trotting-bred horses, 300 catalogued from Ohio, Mis- 

 souri, Michigan and California, sold for a total of |75,000, an average of 

 $250 per head. These horses were coachers and drivers, and it was the 

 largest lot of this class of horses ever offered at a sale in this country. 

 For a brown, 16-hand, eight-year-old gelding, named Wellington, a horse 

 of the finest coach type, $2,000 was paid by a dealer. 



These prices show the possibilities of the business in this State. 

 They are more likely to improve than decline. This is the only country 

 that foreign nations can rely on as being able to furnish horses for their 

 .armies, in sufficient numbers and of the right stamp. The present war 

 in South Africa is emphasizing these statements. We note that the 

 German government is sending a special commissioner to this country 

 to report upon its breeding studs and methods of management, so im- 

 pressed have authorities on the horse in that country been with the 

 high character of American horses, their speed, docility and stamina. 

 A few weeks ago the London Live Stock Journal, after w'atching the 

 showing made by American horses against the finest in the United 

 Kingdom, suggested that a commission be sent to the United States to 

 study the method of breeding and management that produced such a 

 wonderful class of horses. But I need not say more on this subject. 

 Every person w^ho has studied it must know that, given the essentials, 

 the breeder of horses in Michigan has as great and promising possibili- 

 ties as exist in any line of production on the farms of the State. The 

 future of the business is more assured than ever before in its history, 

 because founded upon a more substantial basis. It is individual merit 

 and the positive requirements that exist that are bound to place the 

 breeding of horses in the United States on a higher plane, and make it 

 more remunerative than at any former period in its history. 



