CHAPTER XX 



S. S. ROWLAND AS A BREEDER 



IN August, 1889, I received a letter from Mr. S. S. 

 Rowland, whose country home, Belwood, was at 

 Mt. Morris, Livingston County, N. Y. : 



" This section of the country, the Genesee Valley, 

 unable to compete with the West in wheat, is trying 

 to recover its old reputation of producing the best 

 general-purpose horses of New York. We have the 

 best of pasturage, good water, a species of Blue Grass, 

 and mild winters. Horses are permitted to run out 

 all the year round with simply a shed or often only 

 a straw stack to shelter them. Within a radius of 

 twenty-five miles over thirty stallions of every sort 

 are standing. On a low calculation, 900 colts are 

 bred annually, good, bad and indifferent. The na- 

 tive mares are of fair quality, having in the past 

 been carefully looked after, but through breeding to 

 small trotting stallions, many have bred small. The 

 farmer finds horse-raising even now profitable, but 

 what to breed to is the great question." 



I was asked for an opinion and gave it, and in a 

 second letter Mr. Howland wrote: 



" There is the most perfect and delightful igno- 

 rance existing as a rule among the farming community 

 as to what to breed for and how to get it. The 



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