i6 
THE PERCHERON REVIEW 
Southern-bred draft mares have infinitely more 
quahty than those from the North and West, hence 
the mares of draft blood bred in the South have 
no peers in the business of mule production. An 
immense number of good draft stallions could be 
profitably utilized on this line of endeavor alone. 
Nowhere is the word progress more prominently 
written than in the South and nowhere is it more 
accentuated in practice than in modern Southern 
farming. Progressive farmers have been awakened 
and are demanding the best of team-power for their 
farm work. This cannot be supplied except by a 
liberal infusion of draft blood, and some of the 
Southern states are driving ahead fast in draft 
horse breeding. I think Virginia is leading, but 
Tennessee is coming. Dr. Morgan of the Tennessee 
Profitable Percheron Matrons 
Agricultural College and Prof. Jarnigan of the Georgia 
school are sowing good draft horse seed in these 
commonwealths and a rich harvest will be reaped. 
Virginia has done and is doing its share. A Vir- 
ginia filly won in the great International Percheron 
Futurity of 1913 and her dam was also bred in 
that state. Another Virginia-bred filly was as a 
yearling declared grand champion Percheron female 
at the Virginia State Fair of 1914, defeating the 
grand champion at the Iowa State Fair, which was 
a year older. These two fillies hailed from one stud. 
Another Virginia breeder of Percherons, who has 
never shown a horse except at his local county fair 
and was therefore not an adept at conditioning for 
the arena, exhibited at the International in 1913 
another Virginia-bred mare, winning fourth place 
in the open and second in the American-bred class. 
She won other honors besides and had she been 
properly shod would have gone higher up; indeed 
several judges of national reputation thought she 
was entitled to first place in the native-bred show- 
ing anyway, badly shod though she was. And Vir- 
ginia has hardly started. 
What more or better proof need we require that 
not only draft horses but draft horses of the high- 
est type and quality can be and are being produced 
in the South ^ We are always willing to prove as 
we go and to make our history where the strongest 
competition is assembled. 
There is another point in connection with the 
production of drafters in the South that merits 
emphasis here. That is the effect the breeding and 
use of big work horses has on the young manhood 
associated therewith. In many districts the intro- 
duction of draft stallions not only has solved the 
problem of keeping the boys on the farm, but has 
increased their efficiency in the field one-hundred- 
fold. Whether the influence of the drafter be 
psychic, or whether the promise of greater in- 
come and consequently augmented prosperity be 
the compelling factor, I know not; but it is the 
observation of many thinking men interested in 
Southern live stock husbandry and soil tillage that 
the moment an intelligent effort to breed draft 
horses is made in any region hereabouts the first 
and most marked effect is more and better work on 
the land. This of course means more and better 
crops, more painstaking effort all along the line, 
more money, better living, more modern equipment 
and all those things which are added unto the 
farmer who unites with his family in a genuine de- 
termination to tread the path of progress that leads 
to peace and plenty. E. B. White. 
Reprinted by courtesy the Breeder's Gazette. 
September 20, 1915. 
A Good Start in Percheron Breeding 
A fine example of what a young man can do in 
Percheron breeding came to light the other day in 
connection with a county Percheron sale. A 920- 
pound stallion foal seven months old was sold at 
$275 to a buyer from a distant state. This was 
the first purebred foal that its owner, a young 
farmer, had ever raised. He had selected a year- 
ling and a two-year-old filly two years ago at a 
sale in the county, of the same type and with ex- 
cellent pedigrees, and so good that others fancied 
them too, and he had to pay nearly $900 to get 
them. 
During the past two years he has swallowed con- 
siderable criticism from neighbors because of such 
expenditure, but the fillies have grown steadily and 
developed into a well matched pair of unusual merit. 
This year the four-year-old produced a May foal 
and that was the youngster which brought $275 
at the auction. The first returns on the investment 
were thus secured quickly, and the young mares 
have been constantly becoming more valuable as 
they approach maturity. 
Had the young farmer committed the mistake so 
many make of buying a cheap pair of mares at 
the start his returns could scarcely have been so 
good to date, and his prospects would certainly have 
