HoESE Breedixg IX THE West and East 223 



GOOD CARE XECESSAR\ 



A really good horse must be bred right, fed right and handled 

 right. He cannot l)e neglected while young, and must improve 

 eveiy moment growing it" he is to till the market demand later. 

 One cannot starve money into a draft colt. He must be fed. 



One thing our best horsemen are learning to do, which lessens 

 the risk in horse raising, is giving the colts plenty of range with 

 a goodly supply of feed winter and summer. A colt should not 

 be closely housed if he is to be keep sound and thrifty. He will 

 stand a great deal of cold after the first winter, if he can get out 

 of the wind, and out of the rain in stormy weather. Our very 

 best horsemen throughout the West, let their colts run on pasture 

 the entire year. In winter they are fed plenty of grain to keep 

 them in good growing condition, and are given clover hay when 

 they cannot pick their roughage. They are never confined in the 

 barn or small yard. Under these conditions they get their regular 

 exercise, keep healthy and are very much less liable to injure 

 themselves. I can show hundreds of our best pure-bred animals 

 in the West that have never seen the inside of a barn since they 

 were weanlings. With this system it costs a little more for grain 

 feed, possibly, but there is far less risk, whicb means nearly as 

 much as the feed bill ; and one gets a better development, which 

 is what he is after. Keep the colt growing, and fatten him only 

 once — just before he is put on the market. 



NEW YORK SHOULD RAISE ITS OWX HORSES 



I have always wondered as I have traveled through i^ew York 

 why the farmers did not raise more of their work horses. I have 

 come to this conclusion : that while land was so very cheap in the 

 West and grain also w^as very cheap, making the cost of production 

 so very low, farmers got in the habit of buying from tliB West 

 simply because they could buy cheaper than they could grow their 

 own, which was tiiie in the past. The same law does not hold true 

 today. Land is much higher in the West than in the East, conse- 

 quently it costs very much more to grow a horse there now than 

 it did years ago. There are, in New York State, thon sands of 

 acres of reasonably cheap land that ife- capable of growing splendid 

 pasture grasses. These should be utilized in part by raising 

 horses. 



