THE PERCHERON REVIEW 
3 
The Future of Dra 
More land must be put in small grain, and less left in 
grass, during the next few years. The world's food require- 
ments, in this emergency, can only be met by increasing the 
acreage of grains immediately available as food for man. 
More power will be required on the farm to plant and 
harvest these crops. Labor is scarce. Increased horse power, 
and implements which will permit one man to do as much 
as two or three formerly did, is the only solution of the 
problem. 
Factories are running at top speed. Transportation is 
being taxed to the utmost. Powerful teams are an essential 
factor in transportation. They link factory with railroad, 
and one factory with another. They haul the material 
needed for new structures, and aid in building the same. 
Throughout the whole network of transportation from pro- 
ducer to manufacturer to consumer, heavy draft teams play 
a most important part. Truck and transfer companies, 
guided solely by the balance sheet, declare draft horses arc 
more efficient in short hauls than motors. Evidence that 
they will hold their place in the cities is overwhelming: but 
they must be massive, of maximum draft character, and of 
such structure in feet and legs as to last for a decade and a 
half in city service. 
Farm and city alike will require large numbers of power- 
ful drafters. The demand for the next five or six years 
will be greater than at any time in the last twenty years. 
Armies require horses. Experience has shown they are 
indispensable. In the allied armies the proportion has been 
approximately one horse to every four men, exclusive of 
cavalry. The British Lord of the Admiralty, speaking be- 
fore Parliament in December, 1917, reported that British 
fleets had transported more than two million horses and 
mules to Europe for the use of the allied armies. Figures 
from the Department of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 
U. S. A., show that more than 1,300,000 of these were 
purchased in the United States. The demand from our 
allies continues. To this is added the needs of the United 
States armed forces, in the proportion of one horse or mule 
to each four men, exclusive of cavalry. The horses most 
sought for by all armies are artillery, siege gun and transport 
kinds. These take horses weighing from 1,150 to 1,700 
pounds, sometimes more. The British, in the fall of 1917, 
: Horse Production 
undertook to buy one hundred thousand transport horses — 
which must weigh over 1,500 pounds after arriving at central 
markets — and were frankly told by one of the leading dealers 
that they could not possibly be bought at the price — $220.00. 
They have, however, been purchasing as many of these as 
possible. 
In 1914, at the outbreak of the war, the United States 
had a vast surplus of horses ranging from 1,000 to 1,500 
pounds. That surplus is now nearly exhausted. Horse 
buyers who formerly had no trouble in buying two carloads 
per week, now come in with half a car, because they cannot 
buy more in a week's time. Farmers sold themselves short 
last summer and fall because of the high price of feed. They 
are now searching for teams with which to do their spring 
work in 1918. As a result, prices have advanced appreciably 
in the last thirty days. Grade draft mares of good type, 
and sound, are fifty dollars per head higher than they were 
in December, and are increasing in value. Men who lack 
teams will pay so much for them this season that they will 
conclude it is cheaper to raise work horses than to buy them. 
Failure to sow a large acreage of wheat in the spring 
means a limited yield in the autumn. Failure to breed mares 
makes a short horse crop : but the effects are not noticeable 
within six months, as in the case of wheat. The shortage 
in horses does not become manifest till five years later. In 
1916 and 1917 less than 40 per cent of the mares of breed- 
ing age — excluding pure bred draft mares — were bred. Well 
informed horsemen estimate that yearling colts have decreased 
in number from 1,732,000 — the number shown by the 1910 
census — to approximately a million for the spring of 1918. 
This decrease will be felt most acutely in 1920 and 1921. 
Every ef¥ort should be made by well informed horsemen to 
guard against this by urging the farmers in their respective 
sections to breed all suitable mares in 1918. 
The greatest obstacle to improvement is the small horse 
and the unsound horse of any size. Such animals are not 
marketable. They are not efficient in work. They are 
present in the United States in millions. Every real horse- 
man would be delighted to see the country rid of these un- 
desirable equines. They are a drug on the market. Prices 
range from $20 to $125 on such animals. Their complete 
elimination would be a God-send to the industry. Breeders 
