32 
THE PERCHERON REVIEW 
Establishing a Percheron Stud 
Of the breeds of draft horses, the Percheron has 
the most abundant seed stock in this country. At 
the time war was declared, there were approxi- 
mately one hundred and fifty thousand living draft 
horses in the United States. About one hundred 
thousand of these were Percherons. The best blood 
in the breed was represented, for Americans have 
for the past fifteen years bought the best horses in 
the Perche district in France and have never hes- 
itated at price when merit was in evidence. 
The widespread popularity of Percherons through- 
out the world, and the keen demand for good ones 
in America, have attracted the attention of many 
men who have no question as to the never-ending 
usefulness of the horses — men who are confident 
that no engine ever built, or to be built, can equal 
the horse as a prime motor, self-perpetuating, and 
able to do self-repair. Such men, in increasing 
numbers, are seriously considering the establish- 
ment of Percheron studs. 
To begin with, one must have farm lands, good 
pastures, and suflScient means to purchase good stock 
and wait two or three years for returns. 
The farm lands must be sufficient in extent and 
devoted to such crops as to render it possible to 
keep all dry mares and part of those that are nurs- 
ing foals at work, in order that they may earn 
enough in labor to compensate their owner for the 
actual expense of keeping them. It costs from 
$75 to $100 per year to keep brood mares, and this 
must be offset by remunerative work if profits are 
to be looked for. Aside from this, the experience 
of M. W. Dunham, the first great Percheron breeder 
in America, furnishes proof that idle mares cannot 
be relied on to breed regularly. His mares, run- 
ning knee deep in blue-grass pastures, and kept in 
well-nigh show condition for exhibition to thousands 
of visitors, were, for the most part, irregular pro- 
ducers. Under his later management and that of 
his son, fewer mares were owned, and the dry mares 
were worked, with the result that a higher percentage 
of colts was annually produced. A great many 
other specific cases could be cited; but the facts 
are well known to all good horsemen. 
Good pastures are indispensable. The grasses 
must be nourishing, abundant, and full of sap. 
George Lane, the most noted Percheron breeder in 
Canada, found by bitter experience that the very 
dry prairie grasses on his lower ranges were not sat- 
isfactory for mares and colts. These grasses were 
ideal for fattening cattle or mature horses; but the 
mares did not conceive well on these pastures, they 
lacked milk for their foals on account of lack of sap 
or juice in the grasses, and the colts did not grow 
out. On pastures near the mountains, where the 
grasses were abundant and full of sap, these troubles 
disappeared, and the colts grew to good size. 
No succulent feed and no grain will take the place 
of good pastures. Colts must exercise to develop 
bone, muscle, and good wind. The fact that Ameri- 
ican breeders generally are more successful in breed- 
ing and developing mares than stallions is due 
directly to this. The mares have been allowed to 
run out from colthood. The stallions, becoming 
troublesome as yearlings, are too often tied up or 
shut in box stalls, thus denying them exercise, the 
very thing needful to complete their development. 
Numerous small pastures, from two to twenty acres 
in extent, are characteristic of every farm where 
good stallions have been developed. In these 
pastures the young stallions run in small bunches, 
graded as to size and age, and here they acquire 
sound wind and limb. 
A man need not be rich to become a successful 
Percheron breeder, but from the very nature of the 
case he must be a man of considerable means. He 
must own, or control by long-term lease, tilled lands 
and pastures sufficient in extent to keep his mares 
busy, and provide pasture for his growing stock. 
He must be a successful farmer in the broad sense 
