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Mass. Agricultural College, there was hardly a colt on the park from 

 a sucker to a three-years-old adapted for anything but driving. This 

 state of things is not discouraged by the premiums offered by the 

 society, and perhaps it cannot be until local horse breeders them- 

 selves awake to their folly. New England is over-run with a class 

 of horses altogether too light and too aristocratic for the work which 

 must be done. As a consequence we are dependent on the West or 

 elsewhere for the animals to do our work. 



Which of the two classes of colts is the more profitable? If any 

 one has any doubt in the matter let him attend a few sales and see 

 for himself which brings the better prices. A trotting bred horse 

 that cannot trot in ''forty" or better has no great value, yet there are 

 thousands being bred that can barely do their mile in four minutes. 

 Such horses unless of good size sell for very little. The only explan- 

 ation I can think of for such a course of breeding is man's love of 

 lottery. A thousand buy tickets. One draws a prize. There is 

 just one chance in a thousand that you will win. Go in and do your 

 best for it. 



A fact that tends to augment the evil is the prodigious number of 

 semi-scrub stallions in the section. Their services may be had for a 

 very small fee, and the results show an unprofitable investment at 

 that. In breeding for speed as well as in everything else " the best 

 is cheapest." It would be a blessing to New England horse breeders 

 if the old French and English plan of subsidizing good stallions and 

 destroying inferior ones was practiced by our government. 



In breeding farm and draft horses there is no lottery or chance for 

 a great prize, but there is a certainty of something that will sell at a 

 profit, and tend to improve our common stock. Would that farmers 

 might awake to their own interests and give up the lottery of scrub 

 trotters for the certainty of good general purpose horses ! 



Fred S. Cooley, 

 Chairman of Committee on Farm and Draft Horses. 



REPORT ON MILK TEST. 



Among the many branches of husbandry in which we find the peo- 

 ple of New England engaged, doubtless the most important is that 

 popiilaily known as "dairy farming " This branch has claimed the 

 attention of the Eastern farmer for more than a century, and has 



