The Best House fok the Fak.mer to Pureed 139 



takes in mating the parent stock and developino- the yonng things, 

 the higher the price he will receive and the greater the profit he 

 will make. Heretofore the great army chunk has been prodnced 

 haphazard. Xow is the time for the really wise farmer to set his 

 house in order to he able to o.ft'er a better article, more shapely, 

 bred for the purpose, and fed from birth so as to imbue it with 

 that rotundity of conformation that spells a high price. 



MEDir:\[-ST/ED STAl.I.IOXS DESll.'AP.I.E 



Moreover, if the farmer will set himself to produce chunks 

 weighing from 1,300 to 1,500 pounds in weight, and will con- 

 scientiously endeavor to raise that sort right, he need not use 

 stallions heavier than 1,700 pounds, and we all know that it is 

 far easier to find a really shapely horse of that weight than of 

 2,000 pounds or more. Only a few of the strains in the foreign 

 draft breeds have been characterized by gi'cat scale for a long 

 time. Most of these breeds have been made heavier in response 

 to the American demand for the ton horse. This is especially 

 true of the Percheron. Though there have always been very heavy 

 Percherons, the breed as a whole was much lighter thirty or forty 

 years ago than it is today. Some of the most deeply bred of 

 these drafters are not the largest by any means. 



A medium-sized stallion is usually a prepotent sire. I have 

 never known a great behemoth, no matter how finished he might 

 be himself, to breed well. In any case, what is the sense in using 

 2.000-pound or heavier stallions to beget chunks weighing from 

 1,300 to 1,450 pounds from mares of about the latter Aveight, or 

 only a little lighter ? 'Mj idea of the best thing a fanner can do 

 now to insure for himself always a profitable market and a ready 

 dispo.-^al of tlie horses, is to use a shapely stallion weighing not 

 over 1,700 pounds to mares weighing from 1,250 to 1,400 pounds, 

 and then feed his foals properly during at least their first 3G5 

 days. 



This is a most important item in the success or failure of the 

 horse breeder. It is the flesh made the first year that puts the 

 rotundity into the equine frame. If it is not made then, that 

 rolling roundness of conformation, so much desired, is never at- 

 tnined in its proper development. In this way I believe the sen- 

 sible farmer can fortifv himself so that no matter which way the 



