42 RANCHING IN THE CANADIAN WEST 



elect to keep, get the very best available, for in the 

 long-run you will be the gainer, all things being 

 equal, and presuming you have good sound know- 

 ledge to back you up. 



For anyone with more or less limited means it 

 would be best to devote his energies to the pro- 

 duction of the animal that is likely to command the 

 readiest sale in farming districts, and to such I 

 would recommend the breeding of good, strong 

 draught-horses, such as are used by farmers and 

 ranchers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Northern and 

 Southern Alberta, where new settlers, on the look- 

 out for likely work-horses, are constantly arriving, 

 and afford a good market. To the man with plenty 

 of spare cash, however, it might be well to specialize 

 in pedigree saddle-horses and American trotters ; ^ 

 but it would mean waiting longer for returns on your 

 capital, and probably having to send the animals for 

 sale to a distant market, which is rather speculative. 



Whichever branch you may prefer to take up, the 

 cost of raising the animals is practically nil, pro- 

 vided they be descendants of prairie stock. They 

 happily graze, summer and winter alike, and subsist 

 solely upon the nutritious bunch, blue- joint, grama, 

 and wild brome grasses of the vast expanse of 

 prairie, roaming at will until gathered in at the 

 round-ups. They will scrape up two feet of snow 



