4 Department Circular 153, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 



some individual specimens was in danger of being sacrificed for the 

 specialty striven for by the breeder. For example, the breeder of 

 trotting horses depended on the production of speed in his progeny 

 in order to meet the market demands and to compete favorably with 

 other breeders. Consequently, speed in driving horses became the 

 predominant consideration, and this situation is probably more 

 notable to-day than it was 15 years ago, as the use of the automobile 

 has practically nullified the demand for driving horses for pleasure. 



The light, inefficient horse is undoubtedly destined to be discarded 

 as a factor in American husbandry, and the indiscriminate breeding 

 of small, unsound, scrubby animals will continue to be highh^ unprof- 

 itable if persisted in. It is this class of horses that constitutes the 

 drug on the horse market to-day, and the production of such horses 

 should be discouraged. 



The automobile has practically displaced the light driving horse 

 for pleasure purposes and in a large measure for business purposes. 

 The type of horse which will be most seriously affected by tractor 

 power on the farm remains to be fully determined, but it seems rea- 

 sonable to believe that the greatest use of the tractor will be on large,- 

 level farms for heavy work, especially at peak periods. The function 

 of the tractor will be to supplement and not displace the horse power 

 on the average farm. For the average farm or ranch, especially in 

 rolling and hilly sections, the active utility horse should become a 

 more and more important factor- as an economical power unit, and 

 the advantages of this type are no doubt apparent to the average 

 horseman and farmer. 



The profitable light horse of the future, aside from those bred for 

 special purposes, such as for speed and the saddle, will be the efficient 

 horse that will successfully meet the demands of utility on the average 

 farm or ranch, especially in those sections where the draft horse is 

 not the most economical type to use. It is with a view of maintain- 

 ing a foundation herd of well-bred light horses that will fill these 

 requirements and to carry out breeding experiments for the develop- 

 ment of a breed of this type that the United States- Wyoming horse- 

 breeding station, at Buffalo, Wyo., was established. 



fflSTORY AND OBJECT OF THE HORSE-BREEDING EXPERIMENTS, 



The horses at the United States- Wyoming horse-breeding station 

 were produced in connection with a project previously conducted by 

 the United States Department of Agriculture and the Colorado 

 Experiment Station, at Fort Collins, Colo., until transferred to the 

 present location, in July, 1919. This project was established originally 

 under an appropriation made by Congress providing for cooperative 

 experiments in animal breeding and feeding. The work was begun 

 at the Colorado Experiment Station in 1904 with a band of selected 



