560 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



rich bay color, with clean, black legs, and flowing tail and inane, 

 and quality and disposition good, and will breed them to horses 

 of equal or higher merit, will find he owns valuable property, 

 and will do much to improve the stock of his neighborhood. 



A Profitable Mare. A gentleman in Butler County, 

 Ohio, paid three hundred dollars for a well-bred filly at three 

 years old. She was kind in disposition, sixteen hands high, 

 well and strongly built, and had good trotting action. He has 

 used her on his farm, to his carriage, and bred her to first-class 

 stallions, paying from fifty to one hundred dollars for service, 

 and has in six years produced five colts, and has never sold one 

 for less than four hundred and up to one thousand and five 

 hundred dollars. He considers her the best of property. 



The kind of brood mares kept on the farm decide the kind 

 of colts the farmer will raise. The farmers are the producers 

 of the great mass of horses raised, and we can add to their 

 value in no easier and quicker way than to entirely cease breeding 

 the inferior mares, and seek to stock up the farm* with only the 

 best. The best is the cheapest in all kinds of breeding stock. 



Relation of Size in Sire and Dam. We have said 

 the size of the dam is important, and would impress this fact, 

 as there has been a neglect of the size in the mania for speed. 



While the trotting-horse has come to the front, and done so 

 much to improve the action and pluck of the produce from 

 cold-blood mares, there has been too little attention paid to the 

 size of the stallions and mares. Men have bred any thing that 

 had speed, or loved to go, until we have now an over-stock of 

 undersized horses. They have good action, are hardy, but too 

 small for all farm work, or even to draw a buggy with two 

 persons. 



Farmers and horsemen are recognizing the mistake, and pub- 

 lic sentiment is reacting and going to the other extreme. 

 Farmers are breeding their small mares to the largest horses 

 they can find, regardless of action or quality. Size, and size 

 only, rules with the extremists. They are attempting to breed- 

 up the size by using over-grown stallions. The experiment 

 will surely end in disaster. The farmers of Yorkshire, England, 



