8 



I would not enroll myself with the knockers, yet I would 

 refer again to mistakes that are every day being made in the 

 live-stock world. One is spending good money, paying long 

 prices for breeding stock because of a family name or reputa- 

 tion, rather than because of real merit in the animal purchased. 

 Exceptional individuals are produced in all breeds, — indi- 

 viduals that have in a marked degree the qualities the fanciers 

 of the breed are striving for. They fall into good hands, are 

 developed and win prizes or make records; they are often pur- 

 chased at attractive figures by men who are good boosters, 

 good advertisers; and the lesser lights, the smaller breeders, 

 are much inclined to scramble for an animal carrying the blood 

 of this famous individual, often accepting an inferior specimen 

 in order to introduce the blood and name into their herd. It 

 is well to have great individuals. If they reproduce themselves 

 they are blessings, but remember that their descendants have 

 another side to their ancestral line that may wreck the good 

 that comes from the great head of the family. 



In one of our campaigns for better farming we met in South 

 Dakota a young horseman who was eager to show his recent 

 purchase, — a Percheron stallion, a grandson of Carnot. Car- 

 not is a great horse, a winner in France; a winner in America; 

 proven beyond doubt a wonderful sire. His owner is a booster, 

 a good advertiser, and Carnot blood is much sought for. This 

 young man showed a stallion with the Carnot style and grace; 

 a beauty at a distance, but with a pair of crooked, boggy 

 hind legs, weak in one place where draft horses should be 

 exceptionally strong. He had purchased him from a dealer, 

 and I learned was given his choice between this toppy, bad- 

 legged colt and a smooth, solid young stallion with faultless 

 legs and feet that was the product of several generations of 

 careful breeding by a corn-belt farmer who was not given to 

 boasting or printer's ink; his horses were not known. The 

 young man had spent his money and taken chances on the 

 grandson of Carnot — with perhaps generations of bad-legged 

 mothers in his family — just to get the glamor of reputation and 

 advertising, while the solid colt with a quiet carefully built 

 history was no doubt worth many times more as a reproducer. 



