358 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



overdone. Then came the panic of 1893, the drouth of 1894, the doldrums 

 of 1895, the presidential campaign of 1896, and the bottom fell out of the 

 business. The bicycle came in, and the average farmer thought the busi- 

 ness of growing horses was done forever. 



"We told them they were mistaken, told them in 1896 and in 1897 to 

 buy all the good colts they could buy, to go to every sale and when a good 

 draft colt was up, buy it, no matter what the other fellow would give, to 

 buy it. The men vho took our advice made money faster than they ever 

 did on the same amount of live stock in their lives before, and since then 

 most of us have been breeding horses in a haphazard way. They have 

 been making us money, but some way we have been afraid something 

 would happen; that the automobile, for example, would come in and take 

 the place of the draft horse. Possibly it may to some extent, but not to 

 the extent that would affect the price of your horse five dollars. 



What, then, do we advise now? Just what we advised in the 90's. We 

 advise the man on the eighty-acre or quarter section farm, who is follow- 

 ing a regular line of farming to buy the best high grade mares he can 

 buy, only be sure they are sound, with no defect in vision, no moon-eyed 

 or ophthalmic mares, no unsoundness in wind, no limber-eared, discon- 

 solate mares, but good, all around mares with plenty of tsize, perfectly 

 sound, and with plenty of spirit. You may just as well do your farm work 

 with this class of mares as with poor ones. They will not cost any more 

 to keep, they will do just as much work, and they have a breeding value 

 far beyond the ordinary scrub mare and not to be compared with one that 

 is unsound, no matter how big they are, will do nearly as much work as 

 geldings, and two out of three will produce fine colts if properly mated. 



To the farmer who is out of debt, who really likes a good horse, we 

 suggest that he buy pedigreed registered mares. At the present 

 price they are about as cheap as any kind of stock on the 

 market. If half a dozen farmers in any neighborhood would buy 

 two mares apiece, registered, rattling good ones, and then 

 form a horse company among themselves and buy the best 

 stallion that they can find, they would have about as safe a money- 

 making proposition as anything that we know of. For the registered horse 

 can be grown by the farmer cheaper and better than by the foreigner or 

 by the man who devotes a large farm exclusively to breeding horses. He 

 has work for his mares. They will earn their way the whole year. All 

 that the colt will cost him will be the service fee, the interest on the 

 money invested in the mare, a couple of weeks' idleness at foaling time, 

 and the feed of the colt until it is three years old. They will never see 

 a time when a good brood mare or stallion three years old will sell for as 

 little as the sum of these different elements of cost combined. 



The breeder on the large farm must go to all this expense and besides 

 the use of the mare for a year. He must lose a whole year's use; the 

 farmer loses only ten days or two weeks' use of his mare. The work that 

 she will give him will far more than pay for the year's keep. He can give 

 more attention to two or three colts each year than the man who has 



