THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI. 359 



a large stud farm and must depend on hired help. Nearly all our im- 

 ported horses are grown in this way. The small farmer has the mares and 

 he sells the colts at weaning time to the breeders who can grow them as 

 he would steers 



Have our readers ever stopped to think that it costs less to grow a 

 colt to two or three years old than it does to furnish a fat steer of the 

 same age? The service fee is greater in the case of the colt. The cosr 

 of keeping the weanlings the first winter is about the same. It costs less 

 to keep a weanling colt the year around than it does the steer of the same 

 age. The same may be said of the two-year-old, as you do not need to 

 put 100 bushels of corn into the colt to fatten him to have him ready 

 for the market; one-half the amount will be sufficient. You can winter- 

 pasture the yearling and two-year-old colts, but you cannot winter-pasture 

 the steers. They are probably a little harder on fences, a little harder on 

 grass, but after a good deal of experience we would rather pasture the colt 

 two years than the steer. He will make a better living by far under the 

 same conditions. Why not, therefore, raise something you can sell for 

 two hundred dollars instead of one hundred at the very top? 



Think this over, friends, and do not be afraid that enough farmers 

 will take our advice to knock the bottom out of the market. Even if our 

 markets here were well supplied, we have the world for a market if we 

 can only grow horses good enough. It does not cost more than half as 

 much to raise a horse of a given quality in the Mississippi valley as it 

 does in England, Ireland, Scotland or France. Let us get this business 

 down to a practical, scientific basis. 



Do not get scared at that word "scientific," for there never was any- 

 thing done practically yet that was not done on a scientific basis, whether 

 the man who did it knew it or not, for doing a thing scientifically is doing 

 it right; that is all. Science is simply knowledge reduced to a system. 



KEEPING FARM HORSES IN GOOD FLESH. 



Homestead. 

 We believe that the average farm horse is underfed, not but what 

 there are many instances where these are kept in the very pink of condi- 

 tion, but on the average, as we say, we believe they are underfed. We 

 do not mean by this that animals get an insufficient supply of food to 

 appease their hunger, but we do mean that the supply of nutrients in many 

 cases is not sufficient to take the place of the wear and tear caused by 

 hard work. This is especially true where corn alone is fed. While we 

 know of many instances where good farmers feed corn alone during the 

 entire year, yet in the majority of these cases farm animals are generany 

 in a somewhat thin condition. Corn is a fat producing food, but when 

 animals are working they need a large supply of lean meat producing 

 food. 



