4 
THE PERCHERON REVIEW 
A Noted Sire in Tennessee 
It takes a long time for a stoppage in horse breeding to be really 
felt, much longer than a like condition with another breed of live- 
stock. Horses live longer, their usefulness continues longer, and 
this has made the decrease in horse breeding less apparent than 
it would be with other classes of live stock. The situation is 
such that I feel sure that in the very near future the American 
public will wake up to a realization that horses, necessary for 
farm work and most economical under certain drayage conditions 
in the cities, are nearly unobtainable. There is nothing more 
certain than that producers will stop producing one article when 
the production of some other article pays better. When the public 
stops, the wise man begins. Waiting for improvement in the 
horse situation may cause temporary financial loss and some 
worry, but the harvest will be all the greater in the end. From 
the most reliable information obtainable, we know that the great 
horse producing states of this country are not rearing half as 
many horses as are necessary under present conditions to supply 
the actual agricultural needs of those states; whUe heretofore 
they have produced not only enough for their own needs, but 
have supplied the needs of the East and South, where work animals 
are not reared to any extent. I ask permission to make one more 
prediction, and that is that by 1921 or 1922 draft horses will be 
the best live-stock assets in this country. 
It is true that horses have been displaced, both in the city and 
on the farm, by other types of motive power, but the question is, 
is this displacement economical; and secondly, can this country 
continue to produce without regard to the cost of production? 
There certainly is coming a day of reckoning, a day when neces- 
sity will require the producer of every article to consider the cost 
of production ; and when this day comes, the horse vrill be rec- 
ognized as the cheapest and most dependable power. Wliy 
farmers should be persuaded to give up motive power, the feed 
for which they, themselves, supply from their own farms, substi- 
tuting instead a power fed by Eockefeller, is more than I can 
understand. 
As I said before, it is a two-edged sword. The less grain 
there is fed on the farm, the more there is to go on the market; 
and, consequently, the lower the price will fall. The more gas 
engines, trucks, tractors, and so forth, the farmer buys, the 
greater will be the consumption of gas and the higher the price. 
Gentlemen, is this working in the interest of the farmer, or in the 
interest of the oil magnates, or tractor and truck manufacturers? 
You all know that the most successful farmers in your neighbor- 
hood are the ones who come nearest to producing what they 
need. They are the ones who buy the least, and this will always 
be true. The farmer who produces his own motive power for 
working his farm will always have more money in the bank and 
be more independent than the one who buys his power units and 
the fuel to operate them. Horse power is the cheapest farm 
power. It is the product of your own manufacturing plant. It 
is produced on your farm and consumes only such things as you, 
yourself, manufacture. Therefore, it is your power and your 
customer. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in 
advertising the tractor and truck. Don 't you realize that when 
you buy a truck or tractor you help to pay for these adver- 
tisements? 
For many years it has been thought unnecessary to call, by 
advertising, the attention of farmers and others to the places 
where horses can be economically used, but it seems that this is 
sot the case and that advertising propaganda must be used to 
counteract that which has been put forth so freely by the advo- 
cates of mechanical power. It has, therefore, been deemed wise 
to organize horsemen and all affiliated horse interests in a na- 
tional organization which shall put before the public the truth 
relative to the efficiency and economy of power in the form of 
horses. By affiliated horse interests, I mean the hay, grain and 
feed interests, horseshoe manufacturers, saddlery manufacturers, 
wagon manufacturers, master horseshoers, etc. 
This splendid movement was first given public recognition in 
a call issued by Mr. F. M. Williams of New York City. He inter- 
ested a few friends and they kept pegging away until they suc- 
ceeded in getting a great number of people interested, with the 
result that at a meeting in New York City, held October 30 to 31, 
more than 600 men, representing every interest allied with the 
horse, were present and an organization was created. The Di- 
rectors of this Association will hold a meeting in the City of 
Chicago on December 4 and the additional steps needed to put 
a national organization in effective working shape will be taken 
as rapidly as possible. The work of this new organization will 
be the collection, verification, publication and distribution of 
data showing the advantages horses have over other kinds of 
motive power in agriculture, commerce and transportation. Such 
systematic work carried on by an organization devoted to this one 
task is certain to help greatly in bringing the horse to his proper 
place and will educate the public generally to an adequate realiza- 
tion of the economic relation of the horse to our national life. 
The Percheron Society of America will give all assistance possible 
to the development of the work before this national organization. 
As President of the Percheron Society of America, I have 
tried in every possible way to be fair and just to all members 
and to all interests. Despite this, many people in this country 
have wrongfully accused me of being against the dealer and not 
willing to help him in his business. I have been accused of being 
willing to injure the business of a dealer and, if possible, to put 
him out of business. There never could be a more untrue or 
more unjust statement. I believe no man in America today more 
fully appreciates the benefit and, I might say, the necessity of 
the dealer, to the success of the breeding of any live stock, espe- 
cially horses, and more especially Percheron horses, for more than 
two-thirds of all the pure bred horses in America are of Percheron 
breeding. I have been, and still am, opposed to the importation 
of common or inferior Percheron horses. I think the importa- 
tion of inferior draft horses for breeding purposes has done more 
to injure the draft-horse business of this country than anything 
else. Breeders have been induced to purchase and use these 
inferior animals, and the result has been just as I, for many 
years, predicted it would be — namely, that the country is filled 
with inferior and unsound animals. The breeding of such inferior 
imported animals could not be relied upon, and they not only 
had no individual merit, but had much to condemn them. This 
is why I have taken a strong stand against the importation of 
inferior draft horses. 
A Great Sire 
