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the price obtained in New York. Des Moines, Iowa, and Columbia, 

 S. C., are quite near the geographical centers of their respective 

 States. Columbia is over 400 miles nearer New York and Boston 

 than is Des Moines. Columbia is just that much nearer the coun- 

 try's best horse marke't, and there are three large cities and three 

 great ports on the Atlantic seaboard between Columbia and New 

 York, all of them on a direct line from Columbia. 



So far as the markets are concerned, the South Carolina farmer 

 has as good advantages as the Iowa farmer. These advantages are 

 not developed, it is true, but the conditions are full of latent possi- 

 bilities. If good horses are bred in the South, the buyers will soon 

 find it out and there need be no fear that good prices will not be 

 obtained for good products. 



Possibilities of Southern Mule Markets. Let us now consider 

 the possibilities of the mule market. Although many of the best 

 draft mules are sold to the cities of the North at top prices and many 

 are used on the farms of the Central West, the backbone of the mule 

 industry is the southern demand. These mules are bred mainly in 

 the States within touch of Kansas City and St. Louis, and these 

 markets handle most of the mules of the country. St. Louis, Mem- 

 phis, New Orleans, and Atlanta are the great distributing points. 

 South Carolina is probably too far from Kansas City or St. Louis 

 for her mules to sell on those markets in competition with those 

 raised in Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky, and these States are also 

 much nearer the Memphis market. Further, St. Louis is 40 miles 

 nearer New Orleans than Columbia, and on a direct line ; but look 

 at Atlanta. Columbia is only 253 miles from Atlanta, via Augusta; 

 yet Memphis is 419 miles from Atlanta, St. Louis is 733 miles away, 

 and Kansas City is 903 miles away. Atlanta is coming to be one 

 of the great mule-distributing points of the South, and is now the 

 greatest one in the Southeast. No doubt South Carolina farmers 

 get many of their mules from Atlanta, which were first sold on 

 markets two or three times as far from Atlanta as Columbia. The 

 reason for this is surely not that South Carolina can not produce 

 good mules, because there were on exhibition at the 1906 meeting 

 of the South Carolina Dairy and Live Stock Association native 

 mules which were as good as any market requires. With the devel- 

 opment of Atlanta as a mule market, the reason that more mules 

 are not bred in South Carolina can not be that there is not a con- 

 venient market. A golden opportunity exists here for anyone brave 

 enough to break away from custom and act as a pioneer in mule 

 raising. South Carolina farmers need thousands of mules of a good 

 grade, and at their very door is a market which is in touch with the 

 demand of half a dozen States. What more could c be -desired? 



Methods of Breeding and Management. The methods of breed- 

 ing and management that should be used to produce horses and 

 mules in South Carolina will next be considered. It is a compara- 

 tively easy matter to discuss this phase of the subject from the 

 standpoint of central western conditions, but the writer must confess 

 that he approaches it with considerable trepidation when applied to 



