340 A HISTORY OP THE PEKCHEEON HOKSE 



of farmers bought good, big mares at from $300 to 

 $400 per pair, or less, considering tlie investment 

 a good one when the work value alone was reckoned. 

 Stallion owners and dealers were pressed into service 

 to help sell mares on long-time notes to help relieve 

 men whose bands of mares constituted a heavy ex- 

 pense for feed and care. J. L. DeLancey, J. M. 

 Fletcher and other well-informed horsemen who 

 went through the panic agree in declaring that the 

 best of Percheron mares were actually bought by 

 farmers as low as $300 each — and this for the very 

 best stock. Such expansion of breeding as did occur 

 between 1892 and 1897 was due almost wholly to 

 sacrifice of valuable Percherons by men who either 

 had to sell or who became panic-stricken. From 

 1897 on there was some improvement in prices and a 

 gradual awakening of interest. It was slight, how- 

 ever, as is abundantly attested by the lack of interest 

 in the breeding classes at the first International Live 

 Stock Exposition in 1900. 



What the Figures Show.— In 1890 there were 593 

 breeders of Percherons in the United States; by 1900 

 the number had increased to 1,634. Illinois came 

 first with 547 breeders; Iowa second with 204; Ohio 

 third with 146; Minnesota fourth with 124; Wiscon- 

 sin fifth with 83; Kansas sixth with 72; Indiana 

 seventh with 64; Michigan eighth with 53; Nebraska 

 ninth with 48, and South Dakota tenth with 47. The 

 remaining 246 breeders were scattered through 24 

 states and territories, so that more than four-fifths 

 of all the Percheron breeders in the United States 



