162 THE HORSE BOOK. 



are chiefly that his bone is light, his pasterns 

 short and his rump sloping. The popular verdict 

 is that whatever the size of his bone or the 

 length or angle of his pasterns, his grades last 

 longer on the streets of the cities than those of 

 any other breed. Eight or wrong, the American 

 people have declared in favor of the draft horse 

 which can get up and go, and gauging the matter 

 from the demands of the market, the Percheron 

 best fills this and all other bills. Another point 

 in their favor is the gray color. While all colors 

 are to be found in the breed, grays were for 

 half a century or more the most popular. Then 

 came a craze for blacks; but there never was 

 any good reason for this, seeing that black is the 

 least popular color in the market-place. The 

 breed in this country has, however, staid quite 

 largely gray fortunately and the gray stal- 

 lion is now coming back into his own. Dealers 

 tell me that they will pay as high sometimes as 

 $20 in the hundred for gray geldings more than 

 they will pay for other colors, which supplies a 

 cogent reason why farmers should strive to 

 breed grays. Though a little more than half a 

 century ago the Percheron was not a large horse 

 there has never been any trouble about the size 

 of his get. Today they are as large as any that 

 reach the sales ring, and they always have been. 

 The Percheron has been greatly aided no 

 doubt in its upward course by numbering among 

 its supporters many of the monumental charac- 



