694 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 
Laughlin of Columbus, Ohio. He says: 'The soil of Le Perche is ex- 
tremely calcareous, bone making. American soil is less calcareous. Con- 
sequently, the French Percheron is better boned than the American and 
always will be." 
With which explanation we must content — or discontent — ourselves. 
From the current report of the French horse breeding bureau, it is 
learned that during the fiscal year, 161,414 mares were bred to stallions 
belonging to the state, 81,207 to approved stallions, 9,467 to authorized 
stallions. That is bureaucratic, isn't it? — that a country should be able 
to report a thing like that. And in the archives of the French govern- 
ment is the name and description of each mare in France, together with 
data about the horse to which she was bred. 
Bureaucracy goes farther. It says a horse to breed must be of a cer- 
tain quality; otherwise his owner shall not be allowed to stand him 
publicly. Furthermore, all sires licensed to breed are subdivided into: 
1. Those approved (and usually subsidized), recommended by the 
public veterinary as free from hereditary ailment, well put up, pure bred ; 
2. Those authorized — permitted to stand, but not highly recommended. 
These also must be pure bred. 
The French never dream of breeding to stallions of mixed or unknown 
blood. But the American farmer who bred his mare to a Percheron for 
a heavy colt, usually changes his mind a couple of years later, puts what 
he got from the first cross to a coach horse tor style, this product to a 
trotter for speed, and the grand result to a jack, for a mule. As a horse 
breeder, he doesn't shine, as M. Vallee de Loncez remarked. He looks 
only at the outside of a sire (and apparently not so very carefully at 
that) and cares little what kind of blood is running inside. 
But Wisconsin (of course, Wisconsin) took the lead in this matter of 
horse breeding. They have a singularly forceful veterinary surgeon at the 
University of Wisconsin, who is also one of the most influential members 
of the faculty. (Fancy such a condition at Harvard or Yale!) His 
name is Alexander Septimus Alexander, and he "kissed" a bill to help 
horse breeding through the legislature. He hid the full import of it even 
from the legislators until after they had passed it. When the bill had 
become a law and its enforcement began, the ov,^ners of mongrel stallions 
shrieked. But it was too late. The legislature had adjourned. 
Alexander's law provides that when a man stands a grade stallion pub- 
licly, he must announce in large letters on his advertising matter that he 
offers a grade stallion. 
Speaking in a very general way, a grade is any animal of mixed, 
mongrel or impure blood. A big chunk of a blood bay with feather on 
his legs would be called a grade shire, for instance. Properly, a grade 
Shire could be got only by a pure bred Shire sire. To breed a pure bred 
mare to a mongrel stallion v/ould not be grading up, but de-grading. 
A grade is often a handsome individual, but he is unsafe to breed to, 
because the inferior blood concealed in him is apt to show in his off- 
spring. 
A pure bred animal is pre-potent. His blood dominates when blended 
with the mixed cross currents of a mongrel. If you take an Aberdeen- 
Angus bull (long a hornless breed) and cross him with horned cqws, you 
