228 RURAL MICHIGAN 



P^iiglish shire animals. By this date also other types, 

 SulTolk Punch, and Belgians, were in evidence. The 

 Belgians have made excellent records here and 

 are found in large numbers on the well-known 

 "Prairie Farm" in the Saginaw valley.^ Cleveland 

 Bays and French coach horses were also represented 

 in Michigan. It was averred that "the common horse 

 has seen its best days. Electricity has killed him, 

 and henceforth he will not pay his breeder unless 

 the American public can be induced to follow Paris 

 fashion to eat him."' The intervening thirty years 

 since the foregoing was written have hardly vindi- 

 cated the prophecy. In 1893, Michigan numbered 

 530,294 horses, valued at $40,659,072, averaging 

 $76.67 each.- 



The Yearbook of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture for 1919 informs us that, on January 

 1, 1920, there were 6-10,000 horses in Michigan, 

 whose farm value was $60,800,000, at an average 

 price a head of $95. To this may be added 4,000 

 mules, at an average price of $99 a head, with an 

 aggregate farm value of $396,000.^ The increas- 

 ing use of automobiles and tractors is displacing 

 horses and mules, and the Bureau of Crop Estimates 

 finds the number of colts and young horses less in 

 1920 than in former years. The decline in the total 

 number of horses in that year is 4 per cent, equivalent 

 to 26,000 head. The average price a head in 1920 



* Michigan Farmer, CLIII, 806. 



="-Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1892, 373, 375. 



= "Yearbook," U. S. Dept. Agr., 654. 



