504 Types and Market Classes of Live Stock 



A sound, purebred stallion that is true to type and a good in- 

 dividual in every way is the only kind worthy of patronage. If there 

 is no such horse in the community, it will pay to ship the mares a long 

 distance to reach such a one. If possible, it is always best to patronize 

 a stallion that has proved himself a sure breeder and a getter of good 

 foals. There would not be the great number of unsound, mongrel, and 

 inferior stallions standing for public service if there did not exist a 

 demand for them on the part of mare owners. There can be only one 

 explanation so far as the owner of the mare is concerned, and that is 

 the saving in the amount of the service fee; but no more short-sighted 

 practice can be followed, it having been demonstrated in almost every 

 community that the added value of the foal from a high-class stallion, 

 as compared with the foal by a cheap horse, repays the extra service 

 fee many times over. It costs little more to raise a good foal than an 

 inferior one, and the foal by the cheap stallion is not ordinarily a profit- 

 maker. So many breeders have shown a lack of judgment in this 

 matter, and horse stocks have deteriorated to such an extent in some 

 states on account of the large number of mares bred to cheap horses, 

 that stallion laws have been enacted which debar unsound stallions 

 from public service, and require that placards be posted on the stable 

 door telling whether the stallion is a purebred, crossbred, grade, or 

 mongrel. Every state needs a law of this kind, modified to suit its 

 needs. ^ 



Results of careless breeding. — Another evil in need of remedy is 

 the too common practice of mixing the types of horses. Heavy mares 

 are mated with trotting stallions in order to produce an animal for 

 road use, or with no particular idea in the mind of the mare owner 

 except to "get a colt." Light-weight, light-boned mares, without any 

 semblance of draft qualities, are mated with draft stallions in the hope 

 of getting a draft foal, or again simply to "get a colt." The results of 

 such breeding are to be seen on every hand in the country, and a visit 

 to any large horse market reveals the fact that a large percentage of 

 the animals offered for sale are of no particular type or market class, 

 because they have a variegated ancestry, the result of indiscriminate 

 crossing of heavy and light horses. One is at a loss sometimes to 

 know by what method some market offerings were produced. The 



iThe 1920 census reported that only 0.6 per cent of the total number of horses 

 on farms on January 1, 1920, were registered purebreds. This included 94,280 

 registered purebred draft horses, 10,542 registered purebred light horses, and 16,718 

 other registered purebred horses, including ponies. 



The ten leading states in numbers of registered purebred draft horses were: 

 Iowa 13,676, Illinois 13,128, Kansas 7,391, Ohio 6,471, North Dakota 5,299, Nebraska 

 5,098, South Dakota 4,959, Indiana 4,491, Minnesota 4,093, and Montana 3,307. 



The five leading states in numbers of registered purebred light horses were: 

 Kentucky 1,967, Illinois 990, Virginia 687, Missouri 532, and Kansas 477. 



