PART XII 



Horse Breeding Industry in Iowa 



Law Governing State Enrollment of Stallions Standing in 



Public Service, With List of Certificates Issued 



to May 1, 1908 



WORTHLESS GRADE STALLIONS. 

 From ''The Horseman.'' 



Not many years ago it was thought a national good was being done 

 when farmers and other stock breeders were showing a disposition to 

 improve the horses of the country by the use of grade stallions. These 

 half or three-quarter grades which were brought into use were indeed 

 superior to the local scrub stock, and in some instances an improvement 

 was noted. But on the whole, little good ever came of the use of grade 

 stock of any kind for the purpose of improving a scrub group. 



Grade horses, it should be known, are not bred from grade stallions. 

 Such breeding constitutes mongrelizing. True grades are the product of 

 pure blood on one side and such grades which are half-breeds in the first 

 instance may be graded up by breeding them on the pure bred sire or dam. 

 And the further this grading process is carried on the higher the grade 

 becomes, until, finally, an animal is produced which will be in the matter 

 of prepotency essentially pure. 



Grading up common stock by the use of pure bred stallions makes al- 

 ways for an improvement in the general group, but any attempt to grade 

 up or improve a horse group by the use of grade sires themselves is a 

 waste of time and money, and is as a breeding folly and generally speaking 

 a failure. 



Of so much importance to the State is the character of its stock that it 

 is only the part of wisdom for such governments to take a paternal interest 

 in the horses within its borders at all times, and, when warranted by 

 conditions, takes absolute control and regulate by laws the use of stallions. 



The states are doing this to some extent now, only they have not yet 

 gone quite far enough. Wisconsin, a State that can boast of a large num- 



(821) 



