SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VII. 533 



CAN AMERICA GROW HER^ OWN DRAFT-HORSES? 



WALLACES FARMER. 



It is time that farmers and breeders in the United States were tak- 

 ing up this question seriously. Years ago there was an impression, very 

 srong in England, which the farmers of the United States shared, that the 

 United States, on account of climatic reasons, would always be dependent 

 on England for continued supplies of the best blood in growing cattle and 

 ■heep, and on England, France, Belgium and Holland for cattle and 

 horses. We are getting over that now with regard to cattle and hogs; 

 and while we will no doubt be benefited by an introduction of new blood, 

 especially in cattle, it may well be doubted whether England would not 

 also benefit by the introduction of the best strains from America. We 

 win no doubt be benefited by the introduction of some of the bacon breeds 

 of hogs from England, but it has been demonstrated time and again that 

 America Is capable of producing a lard hog — that is, a hog adapted to the 

 environment of the corn belt — equal to any in the world. 



The English, French and Belgian breeders of any kind of live stock 

 have one very great advantage which the Americans will not have for 

 some time to come. The English people put a great deal higher value on 

 country life than the American has heretofore done. Farms remain in 

 the same family from generation to generation; and where the family has 

 a taste for live stock and an ambition to keep up the family name, the 

 son and grandson take up the work that the father and grandfather laid 

 down, and these farms acquire a national and often an international repu- 

 tation. Then, again, these countries are cursed to a far less degree 

 with the speculator in breeding stock, who jump in when prices begin to 

 advance, creates a boom, sometimes gets out with a whole skin, and often- 

 times, with poetic justice, is crushed by the collapse of the boom which 

 he has promoted — hoisted, so to speak, by his own petard. 



The main question to be considered is whether the soil and climate 

 of America are capable of developing, if not the highest type in some 

 particular direction, the type best adapted to the American environment. 



In a preceding article we pointed out in broad general outlines the 

 soil and climate the world over adaptec' to the breeding of the draft-horse. 

 America has a large section of this draft-horse country — larger, in fact, 

 in acreage and in the capacity to produce the highest type of draft- 

 horse, provided the bldod were once introduced, than all of Europe, Asia 

 and Africa put together has for this purpose. Why not, then, make a 

 concerted effort to grow our own draft-horses, and of the breeds which 

 after being tried for a generation prove themselves adapted to the soil, 

 climate and labor of the country? 



The first question that arises is: Have previous efforts been a suc- 

 cess; or, rather, have we developed a class of draft-horses equal, or 

 approximately equal, when the breeamg has been considered, to those 

 which have been imported from the older countries? In a previous article 

 we called attention to a type (we would not call it a breed) of draft-horse 



