THE EARTH'S BOUNTY 



would answer their specific purpose as well, if 

 mares, and will materially help the general 

 scheme of money-making. For the last ten 

 years the good family horse and the farm horse 

 has been getting more difficult to find, and 

 higher in price; nor is there any likelihood of 

 conditions changing for some years to come. 

 There are usually one or more sires to be found 

 within a radius of ten or fifteen miles, so that 

 the beginner need not undertake the respon- 

 sibility of keeping a stallion, which is usually 

 the portion of the business dreaded. 



We should probably have been contented 

 to send all the mares out to service, had not 

 a fifteen-month-old thoroughbred been put up 

 at a stock farm auction. It was a stormy 

 day, early in the year, and the attendance so 

 meager, that the bidding was a farce. No one 

 made an offer for the colt at first. Then a 

 nasty-looking man said, " Thirty dollars " ; 

 and, as it seemed as if he would get it, I said, 

 " Forty," though I hadn't any desire to have 

 the colt, and was rather sorry for the impul- 



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