THE P E R C H E 
THE BUSINESS OF SELLING 
PERCHERONS 
By ELLIS McP ARLAND, Secretary 
Percheron Society of America 
Ask any successful merchant you may, and he will tell you 
that success in selling goods depends first, on having something 
to sell that the people want, and second, on knowing how to 
present it for sale. This old fashioned truth has existed since 
the beginning of history and will last to the end of time. A 
Percheron breeder never lived whose success or failure was not 
determined by this simple truth. 
Ask yourself then, "How can I produce the kind of Perch- 
erons the public demands?" The breeder must consider his own 
qualifications first because if he is not suited to the breeder's 
calling, no matter how much money he spends, or what kind of 
Percherons he buys, his name will never go down in a history 
of the breed as one who has contributed something worth while 
in popularizing them with the purchasing public. Breeders are 
born and not made. If you do not love good horses to the 
extent that you could sit up with them by night and day if 
need be, to deliver a foal, or to care for a sick one; or if you 
do not care enough about your horses to see to it that they are 
fed neither too much nor too little, that they are not overworked, 
to see that tliey are not watered when thej' should not be, to see 
that the mares heavy in foal are not jerked and jammed around 
by some thoughtless driver, and lastly, to see that these well 
bred animals have a clean, comfortable stall at night or a good 
shed in winter, or a luxuriant pasture in summer; if you are 
not willing to do all of this well and gladly, you are not des- 
tined to become a successful Percheron breeder. 
Breed progress is hindered more from the fact that few men 
can ever see or will ever admit that they are not capable of 
being constructive builders of improved types of animal form 
than from any other factor. If, as recorded in holy writ, 
"MAN KNOW THYSELF," could be instilled into the minds 
of prospective Percheron breeders, we would have better Perch- 
erons, but fewer breeders, and the breed would improve far more 
rapidly because of it. 
FIRST-CLASS FOUNDATION STOCK 
First class foundation stock is the safest, cheapest and 
quickest way to produce Percherons that breeders will readily 
pay a good price for, and that will make raising a profitable 
business to you. No matter how hard one tries or how much 
one has spent in buying the original animals, if their colts are 
not of the right sort, one can never be successful in breeding 
and selling Percherons. It takes only one good mare to give a 
breeder the proper kind of a reputation, if she is bred to the 
sire tluit will nick liest with her. Altogether too many have 
the mistaken idea that their standing as a Percheron breeder 
depends on owning a large number of animals. It is the number 
of good ones which one produces that counts most. Our Percheron 
breeders as a whole should be criticized for not making better 
use of the sires that are demonstrating their value in begetting 
extra good offspring. The majority breed all the mares they 
have, to their own herd sire whether he is fit or not, or they 
take their mares to the nearest purebred horse. That is why 
breed improvement goes on no faster than it does. Any man 
who does not mate his mares carefully to the right sire in so 
far as human intelligence is able to determine, and even to the 
extent of patronizing other sires than his own, regardless of 
who owns them, can never hope to get very far in improving 
the breed or in building up a worthy reputation, or in enlarging 
his financial income from the horse business. J. Ernest Kerr, 
of Harveston, Scotland, has the most valuable stud of Clydes- 
dale mares living in any country. There is no good second. 
He does not have a stallion of his own, realizing that it is an 
impossibility for any one stallion to be equally suited to all 
of his mares. He picks out the sire that he thinks will nick 
best with that particular mare, regardless of who owns the 
stallion or what the service fee may be. Frequently, in a single 
season, this master breeder will pay out more money in service 
fees than some breeders would have in cash if they sold their 
entire stud at public auction. 
Every Percheron breeder either knows who has the best 
sires or he has a very easy way of finding out who owns the 
most valuable breeding stallions. There is no logical excuse 
that can bo offered hy any breeder with a good mare for not 
breeding her to tlie horse to which she should be mated. 
GREAT BROOD MARES 
In tliese days fif high prices for extra good ones, breeders 
are too much inclined to sell animals, mares particularly, which 
RON REVIEW 11 
should be kept regardless of the price offered. Robert Bakewell, 
the master spirit among early day, old country breeders, taught 
that the way to produce the best is to reserve the best females 
for breeding purposes in one's own stud. It is this one thought 
and no other, put into practice for nearly two centuries, that 
has caused people everywhere to concede the unquestioned su- 
premacy of Great Britain as the source of pure-bred stock for 
the world. Several of the greatest Percheron mares the breed 
ever produced have changed hands in the last few months and 
their influence in the breeding establishments they left cannot 
help but I)e keenly felt in the years to come. Each of these 
men who parted with these valualile animals for prices unheard 
of before, has taken money in exchange for an opportunity that 
seldom comes to any breeder. Of course, this opportunity may 
be transferred to the new owner, but experience shows that 
many times it is not made use of and the animal is soon lost 
and the breed has suffered. If breeders are to live up to their 
fullest opportunities, their best mares must be kept and bred 
to the best stallions, for improvement is a slow process at best, 
and only can such work go on as it should when the best parent 
stock available, is used. 
FEED AND CARE 
A breeder may know how to produce good horses and he 
may have tlie best foundation animals obtainable, but if he 
does not feed and care for his youngsters properly, he will not 
succeed. That does not mean expensive barns, concrete walks and 
handsome fences; but it does call for comfortable quarters, such 
as large box stalls with plenty of ventilation, good tanks with 
plenty of water available at all times, dry lot paddocks for 
use in winter and grass paddocks for grazing in summer. The 
number of paddocks depends on the number of Percherons car- 
ried on hand. Stallion colts cannot be grown successfully 
without abundant grass paddocks. There should be at least 
three acres of good blue grass in each enclosure. The fence 
should be of No. 9 wire with a close mesh so that colts cannot 
get their feet between the wires. For best results, these stal- 
lion paddocks should Ite built so that no outside horses can 
come closer than fifty feet. Stallion colts will fret and not 
gain in growth as they should, if they can smell other horses 
over the fence. 
GRASS PADDOCKS 
Grazing ground should be treated with limestones, cattle 
and hog manure, annually, so that the grass will grow as lux- 
uriantly as possible. Without the aid of good grass paddocks, 
a breeder better castrate his stallions or sell them as weanlings, 
because he cannot bring them along to a selling age and have 
them good enough to make their raising a profitable business. 
It is a great saving of time also to the busy farmer if he can 
have his stallions in grass paddocks with tanks for them to 
drink as they please. Then all the work necessary is to feed 
the colts grain regularly and to clean out their stalls occa- 
sionally, but this latter job is a good one for rainy days when 
one cannot do much else. A very good arrangement is to have 
a shed or small barn-like structure with four box stalls under 
the same roof, one in the corner of each of four grass paddocks. 
One tank in the center of the barn or shed will supply water 
for all four boxes. 
Frencli breeders and dealers grow their stallions in grass 
pastures, and the sooner American breeders come to realize that 
