SELECTION, CARE AND MANAGEMENT 553 



I raise horses to maturity that would surprise the 

 average easterner. 



"About Jan. 1 I wean the foals, and during the 

 first winter I feed them oats and alfalfa hay. I 

 find that in this way I can raise horses that compare 

 favorably with the eastern horses that are fed hay 

 and grain throughout the year, and I think we get 

 a much more hardy and tougher horse, of immense 

 lung power and a constitution that cannot be ex- 

 celled in the lower altitudes. One of the noticeable 

 things about the horses raised in this country is 

 that even many of the larger ones can be worked 

 all winter without shoes. Actual tests show that 

 the average range-bred and range-raised horse has 

 a bone as solid as the Thoroughbred, and that the 

 legs are usually free from puffs and enlargements. 

 The horses which I have raised under western con- 

 ditions are as large as or even larger than the eastern 

 horse. I have mares in my band that have never 

 tasted grain, except during the first winter after 

 foaling, that weigh from a ton to 2,200 pounds, and 

 I have also had two-year-old fillies weighing as much 

 as 1,900 pounds. 



"By buying a young stallion in the east and ma- 

 turing him here I get a larger horse with more and 

 better bone than would have been the case had he 

 remained in the east until maturity. I account for 

 this by the fact that our feeds are so much strxjnger 

 and of so much better quality than those grown in 

 the eastern states. This is a broad assertion, but 

 our oats seldom make less than 40 pounds to the 

 bushel and have gone as high as 48, and I am 

 threshing today oats that are yielding 80 bushels 

 to the acre. The last three stallions that I bought 

 in the east for my own use prove to my mind that 

 my assertion is true. Two of them I bought as year- 



