14 
THE PERCHERON REVIEW 
Three Virginia-Owned Champion Mares 
Draft-Horse Breeding in the South 
Soil tillage and stock raising in the South are 
undergoing great changes. First let us consider 
what is meant by the words "in the South." That 
region embraces all the states south of the Potomac 
and Ohio rivers, with the addition of the states of 
Missouri and Arkansas, thereby including Tennes- 
see, Kentucky and Virginia, the three common- 
wealths that have been foremost in the production 
of thoroughbred, standardbred and saddle horses 
for many years. Legislation has destroyed the 
market for race horses, and the march of civiliza- 
tion has greatly curtailed the outlet for fast driving 
and light business horses. Radical changes in pol- 
icy are thus forced upon us, directing our attention 
toward the breeding of drafters. As an equal in- 
centive to the production of heavy horses has come 
the general recognition of the necessity for a greater 
diversification of farming and the benefits arising 
from crop rotation and better tillage methods. 
The cotton crop of the South alone annually 
exceeds in value all the gold and silver mined and 
refined throughout the whole world. I quote some 
statistics which show what strides in agriculture 
the South had made up to and including 1912 and 
no one doubts but that the comparative figures for 
the present year if available would be more surpris- 
ing. The value of farm products in the South in 
1880 was $756,000,000 and in 1912 over $3,000,000,- 
000, and was greater than the value of all the farm 
crops of the United States as late as 1880 by $600,- 
000,000. The value of the exports from Southern 
ports in 1912 was $747,000,000 as compared with 
$857,000,000 for the entire country in 1890. In 
1890 the corn crop of the United States was 1,489,- 
000,000 bushels and the corn crop of the South in 
1910 just twenty years later, was 1,270,000,000 
bushels. The South in 1912 had one million more 
cotton spindles than the United States had in 1880. 
The South in 1912 mined 115,000,000 tons of coal, 
while in 1880 the United States mined only 71,000,000 
tons. Possibly the most striking illustration of the 
increasing wealth of the South is that the individual 
deposits in national banks of the South in 1912 ex- 
ceeded the individual deposits in the national banks 
of the United States in 1880 by $84,000,000. 
The foregoing shows what the South has achieved 
that can be expressed in figures without trying to 
estimate the value of the accumulated experience, 
and they give only a vague idea of the possibilities 
of the future of this great country. These con- 
ditions clearly indicate that we must have more 
horses, not race or other light pleasure horses, but 
work horses — and mules. Greater weight in the 
collar is becoming more and more year by year a 
prime necessity on every Southern farm. 
Obviously the South can obtain these horses and 
mules at lowest cost by breeding them; indeed 
there is no section of this country where horses, 
either light or heavy, can be raised so cheaply as 
in the Southern states. The most prosperous por- 
tions of the entire Union are those in which the 
drafter is raised most extensively and what is true 
of those regions is also true of the South. In my 
country the farmers who breed draft horses are the 
most prosperous, and I believe this condition will 
prevail in every locality where conditions favor, the 
production of the drafter. 
If farmers make money breeding draft horses in 
the West where stock must be housed and handfed 
during several months of the year, why cannot the 
