86 DOMESTIC ANIMALS, DAIRYING, ETC. 



The decline of the company system of selling in the corn belt is 

 being followed by the adoption of the public sale by some breeders, 

 and the firms that use the company system most extensively are car- 

 rying it into the South and far West, where less experience has been 

 had with it. There is little doubt that the people of these sections, 

 too, will soon find out the faults of the system, and we can look for- 

 ward to the time when it shall have passed from us forever. The 

 objections to the system are its expensiveness and general unreliabil- 

 ity. To send an agent into the field for several weeks to sell one 

 horse (and often the horse is with him, and a groom also), to pay 

 this agent's commission and the discount on the notes, piles up a tre- 

 mendous expense bill, which must be added to the cost of the horse 

 and paid for by the purchaser. Stallion owners estimate that it 

 costs on an average about $1,000 to sell a stallion by the company 

 system. A home-organized company could send a man to Europe 

 for a horse at a smaller expense than that. 



The unreliability of the system rests on the fact that, under the 

 law, firms are liable for the acts of their agents only when agents 

 act within the limits of their authority. If a firm wishes to do so, 

 when a purchasing company finds an agent's promises of no value, 

 it can retire behind the excuse that the agent exceeded his author- 

 ity. However, there are, no doubt, more honest agents than dis- 

 honest ones, just as there are more honest stallion owners than dis- 

 honest ones. 



The element of unreliability is of course not always present in 

 the sale of a horse by the company system, for the representations 

 of an honest agent of an honest firm can be depended on to the 

 letter. But no firm can sell a horse in this way without great cost to 

 the purchasers, in many cases more than the horse is really worth 

 and in most cases more than the shareholders can ever hope to get 

 out of their investment. The system has one great merit, namely, 

 that it is taking many good horses into sections of the country where 

 they are sorely needed, and probably the value of such horses to a 

 community will be equal in the long run to the price paid for them, 

 although this may not show in the books of the companies which 

 purchase them. 



The Breed of the Stallion. Beginners will find themselves 

 confronted at once by the question whether to choose a horse of a 

 light breed or of a heavy breed. By a light breed is meant one of 

 the carriage, roadster, or saddle breeds, such as the Standardbred, 

 Hackney, French Coacher, Saddle Horse, or Thoroughbred. By a 

 heavy breed is meant one of the draft breeds, such as the Percheron, 

 Belgian, Clydesdale, Shire, etc. By selecting a horse of one of the 

 light breeds the beginner starts on the road of producing first what 

 our markets call general-purpose horses, and eventually horses of a 

 better class carriage horses, drivers, and saddlers. If a heavy 

 horse is selected, the first cross will probably be a general-purpose 

 horse also, but with less quality than when the light breeds are used. 

 Eventually, however, this route leads to the production of heavy 

 horses the expressers and drafters of the market. The possibilities 



