154 A HISTORY OP THE PEECHEEON HOESE 



Kansas, Iowa and Oregon. Michigan received its 

 first blood also in 1870, when Hon. Z. T. Chandler, 

 Lansing, bought Mark Anthony 296 from Gen. W. T. 

 Walters, Baltimore. Oddly enough, although every 

 stallion taken into Illinois and further west neces- 

 sarily had to pass through Indiana there is no men- 

 tion made of the location of any imported stallion 

 in that state within the period of 32 years just re- 

 viewed. Mahomet 292, a five-year-old gray stallion 

 imported in 1868 by the Watkins confederacy in 

 Ohio, is recorded as having made several seasons in 

 Illinois and Indiana, but that is as close as we can 

 come to discovering any early awakening in Indiana 

 to a sense of the merits of these imported horses. 



By the close of 1870 draft horse breeding had 

 been established in Illinois as a commercial industry 

 on a sure and solid basis, though as yet no purebred 

 mares had been owned within the state. Up to this 

 time a large percentage of the male progeny of the 

 imported stallions, especially if gray in color and 

 descended from the Samson mares, were kept entire 

 and used in the stud, some of these grades being 

 high-class individuals and often really not to be dis- 

 tinguished from the imported article. Weights as 

 high as 1,800 and even 1,900 pounds had been 

 achieved in this line of breeding and prices up to 

 and beyond the $l,000-line had been paid for the best 

 specimens. Four hundred and $500, and even $600, 

 $700, and $800 were prices constantly quoted for 

 young gray horses possessing the characteristic 

 "Frenchy" form, even though only half-bred. Stal- 



