FARMERS' IXSTITUTES. 147 



WHAT TYPE OF HORSE SHALL THE MICHIGAN FABMER 



BREED? 



HERBERT W. MUMFORD, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



It might be asked, shall the farmer breed horses at all? 



Most of us do not appreciate the importance of the farmer in the horse 

 breeding industry. 



The fact is that by far a large majority of the horses reaching our 

 city markets were raised upon the farn^s of this country. 



The horse breeders, strictly speaking, do not mean to produce many 

 individuals which are not too good to go to the open market. They con- 

 cern themselves with the production of sires and high class breeding 

 stock. 



We should look upon the farmer, then, as a great factor in the horse 

 markets of the future. 



The horse breeder can afford to have a sire of high quality and brood 

 mares of more than ordinarj^ shape, style, action and finish. 



In the past the great bulk of horses have been produced from very 

 ordinary and inferior mares of all types, in the hands of the farmers. 

 The sires, too, have been good, bad and indifferent, such as they could 

 get access to and often preferring to breed to a part bred stallion of 

 little character but low service fee, than to breed to a pure bred sire 

 possessing quality and prepotency. 



The period of depression in the horse breeding industry in this coun- 

 try extending from 1893 to 1897 has taught the horse raisers of America 

 many valuable lessons which I fear are apt to be forgotten so soon as 

 the scarcity of horses will make it possible to sell almost any kind of a 

 horse with more than ordinary size for a good price, which time in the 

 judgment of the writer is very near at hand. 



The development of the export trade in horses since 1893 has had 

 much to do with fixing the types, grades or classes of market horses in 

 this country. A market horse must now have a certain type to com- 

 m_and the highest price in market. 



In a few short years the time will come again when the buyer will 

 not be obliged to take almost anything to supply an active demand, but 

 the supply will be ample and the buyer will pay good prices only for the 

 very best that have been bred for a special purpose. 



Nearly all countries are represented at our great horse markets, and 

 it is one of the hopeful indications of what the future will be that when 

 we have a large surplus of horses in this country foreign buyers will 

 be on the market ready to take the surplus of good horses at paying 

 prices. 



The various types of market horses are as follows: 



1. The Draft horse. 



2. The Coach horse. 



3. The Cob or Hackney. 



4. The Roadster and American Trotter. 



5. The Saddle horse. 



