378 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



HORSES. 



THE PROFIT IN DRAFT HORSES 



Wallaces' Farmer. 



Farmers who have kept right along growing draft horses through good 

 times and through bad have always been money ahead, and always will be. 

 We know ' 'always" is a long time. Inventions may be made in the future 

 that will do away with the horse altogether, but the chances of this are so 

 small that they can very safely be left out of the account. First-class horses 

 are now bringing prices that make farmers who have them to sell rich and 

 if the farmer will iust keep on breeding along right lines and limiting the 

 colts that he raises to the number of brood mares that can be used profit- 

 bly on the farm he will be a sure winner every time. 



Few farmers realize how cheaply a weanling cok can be developed on a 

 first-class farm to his three-year-old form. It costs no more to keep a wean- 

 ling colt two years than it does a weanling calf. In fact, the colt can be 

 kept cheaper than the calf. Both will require some grain the first winter, 

 and will be better with a little grain the second winter, but the colt will 

 develop on a winter pasture of blue grass or second crop clover and on the 

 forage on the farm to a good deal better advantage than the calf and can be 

 fitted finally for the market for one-half the money, and if the right kind of 

 a colt will sell for twice as much money as the calf or steer. The main dif- 

 ference between the cost of a fat steer and the three-year-old draft horse is 

 in the cost of the service. 



You can not keep an ordinary cow for the chance of an ordinary calf. 

 Neither can you keep three brood mares where two horses would be suffi- 

 cient to do the work and on an average raise two colts from the three mares. 



The important thing is the breeding . It does not pay to grow a scrub colt , 

 even if the land is worth only $20 per acre. Neither does it pay on that 

 priced land to grow a scrub steer. The best style of horse for the average 

 farmer to raise is the draft, and it does not matter much whether he use 

 Norman, Shire, Clyde, or Belgian sires. The quality of the sire counts for 

 a great deal more than breed. The care the colt receives during the suck- 

 ling period, and especially from weaning time onward, counts almost as 

 much as does the breed. Our advice to farmers during the winter is to 

 make arrangments for the service of the very best possible sires of their pre- 

 ferred breeds. The best sires are not always those which cost the most 

 money. The breeding quality of the sire does not increase with the price 

 you pay. The addition to the price by commission or profits makes no addi- 

 tion to the heredity which he is disposed to transmit. 



We believe in the organization of horse companies when organized by 

 farmers themselves and when horses are bought judiciously. It is, in fact, 

 about the only way in which in the average neighborhood the services of a 

 first-class horse can be secured. Let the farmers make arrangements in 

 some way to be within reach of first-class sires. Breed the mares for which 

 you can find work on the farm, discarding all that have any hereditary un- 

 soundness, take proper care of the colts during the suckling period, give 



