688 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



plished. If one should have, when he weans his colts in the fall, a blem- 

 ished one or a scrub, he should not be deceived into thinking he can 

 perform a miracle and make a good horse out of a scrub colt. Sell him, 

 if possible, or give him away to a less enterprising neighbor, if necessary, 

 and be relieved of the discomfort of being compelled to see a colt in the 

 bunch you are ashamed of, for it will always be standing between you 

 and your best colt when you wish to show the bunch to visiting neighbors. 



England with the Shire, Scotland with the Clydesdale, France with the 

 Percheron and Belgium with the Belgian have each made a great success 

 by years of building up and breeding along certain lines until they have 

 attained the size, color and uniformity required in a draft horse. In this 

 country we have tried an entirely different plan. We hoped to get the 

 ideal type by buying from each of these countries their very best and 

 like the magician who puts everything in a hat and stirs them up and 

 by waving his hand and by saying the magic words produces anything 

 one may call for, we hoped by this mixture to produce a draft horse; 

 but we have not yet learned the magic words and our efforts have been 

 a failure. 



I shall have to plead guilty of attempting this hocus pocus way of 

 building up a draft breed, but after a short trip through some of the 

 breeding districts of Europe I was not long in reaching the conclusion 

 that if we ever wanted to compete with them in the production of any 

 breed of horses we would have to make a radical change in methods. 

 After wasting the best years of my life in raising nondescripts, I am now 

 starting in with one breed and have stocked our farm with some good 

 young mares which I brought home with me from Belgium two years 

 ago; also a few stallions for our own use. I am convinced after my short 

 experience that we can raise just as good horses here by securing good 

 imported mares and stallions as a foundation and giving them our in- 

 dividual attention as can be raised anywhere in the world. With our 

 land selling at $200 an acre and more we must quit raising anything but 

 the best. We should learn a lesson from the farmer of Belgium who 

 pays $24 an acre cash rent for his pastures, buys all his grain from either 

 America or Argentina and then finds his market here in the cornbelt for 

 his horses. 



I have always thought our state fairs and the International at Chicago 

 gave too much attention to the imported horses and very little, if any, to 

 American-bred horses. The importer who is willing to travel the world 

 over to find the best to put into our showrings and sell to farmers to 

 improve their stock deserves all the encouragement we can give him; 

 but it is not fair to compel a farmer who only raises a few colts each 

 year to go into the showring and compete with the best in the world. 

 He tries the game once or twic6 and gets discouraged and quits. Neither 

 is it fair for the importer, as it is no credit to him, and by discouraging 

 the young breeders he is losing customers for his best stallions. 



Proper encouragement should be given the American-bred colt and 

 classes made and premiums offered sufficiently large to cover the expenses 

 of the trip to the fair. As superintendent of the draft horses at our 

 Indiana State Fair I suggested a class for the best weanling draft colt, 

 any breed, pure-bred or grade of either sex, and we are offering $100 in 



