PROFIT OF HORSE BREEDING. 



189 



for from twenty to thirty cents a pound live weight, while a steer brings 

 no more than from five to six cents a pound on foot. As it costs no more 

 to rear a colt to three years of age than to bring a steer of the same age 

 into condition for market, when it weighs but little more than the horse, 

 and after that age a horse more than earns his feed until he is sold, it is 

 easily seen that there is more than four times as much money in the 

 horse than in the steer. 



It costs no more to rear a good horse than a poor one, excepting 

 the expense of service, which may be $25 or $50, while the colt from 

 the better horse is quite likely to bring more than the extra sum paid 

 for the service of his sire. This fact applies to the rearing of all 

 kinds of stock, and it should be a maxim with farmers to " always 

 breed the best." It is a great mistake to breed from unsound 

 animals, because these defects of unsoundness in nearly all cases 

 descend to the progeny. There are thousands of diseased horses 

 tttat are bred from diseased mares, and inherit their defects from the 

 dams or sires. Therefore, the first requisite in breeding horses should 

 be to use only sound, healthy mares, and to use a sound sire. Spavins 

 and other diseases of the joints, blindness, bad temper, and many 

 other defects, become constitutional, and are reproduced from gen- 

 eration to generation, and thus it is that there are so many unsound 

 horses in existence. 



