NEW YORK, OCTOBER 30, 1886 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1886, by the Rural New-Yorker In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
and the chances of getting a first-class colt 
from a farm mare which is game in her work, 
level in her head, and of good disposition and 
conformation, are very little, if any, less than 
from a mare of the most fashionable lineage, 
that has nothing else to back her. We are 
far from advising that really worthless mares 
should lie bred to expensive stallions, as that 
would be throwing money away iu ninety-nine 
eases out of a hundred; blit on every farm 
with several head of stock there are one or 
more tried and true mares, with no special 
pedigree behind them, iu whose behalf it 
would be well worth while to spend a trifle of 
extra money for the sake of their progeny. 
And this is especially to be advised in the 
case of those mares, of which nearly even’ 
York City. He is a son of the greatest sire of 
trotters, all things considered, that has ever 
lived, George Wilkes, and his dam was 
Missie, by Brignoli. George Wilkes had a 
record of 2:23, which was, for a long time, the 
fastest ever made by a stallion, and among 
his get are Hairy Wilkes, the best performer 
of 1886, and 43 others with records of 2:30 or 
better. He was a son of Rysdyk’s Harnble- 
tonian. indisputably the greatest of trotting 
progenitors, and had a rich infusion of Clay 
blood on the side of his dam. Brignoli, sire 
of the dam of King Wilkes, was a trotter him¬ 
self, with a record better than 2:80. and was a 
son of Mambrino Chief, sire of the celebrated 
Lady Thorne, and the founder of the greatest 
of trotting families after the Hambletonian. 
o vs cman 
TROTTING STALLION KING WILKES. 
W. T. CHESTER. 
(Of the Turf. Field and Farm.) 
The farmers of the country are rapidly 
waking up to the fact that it is the truest 
eeonom}’ for them to breed their work mares 
to horses whose produce will have an initial 
and intrinsic value, because of the reputation 
of the sire. The horse-breeding interest in 
this country, both in thoroughbred and trot¬ 
ting lines, has made tremendous strides of late 
years, and, while it is true that the agricul¬ 
tural element has 
not kept up with its 
marvelous pace, it 
is also true, as I 
remarked, that 
farmers are begin¬ 
ning to note the ad¬ 
vantage of breed- > 
ing their, so-called, * Jjf. 
common man's to 
superior stallions. |ifcjkjR 
The instances, on 
the trotting turf 
especially, where 
great performers 
have been thrown 
by mares of un¬ 
known breeding to 
the embrace o f 
favorite sires, 
have been very nu¬ 
merous, as is at¬ 
tested by the sum¬ 
maries in such a 
work as Chester’s 
Complete Trotting 
and Pacing Re¬ 
cord, where the sire 
is named, hut the 
dam is given as nu- 
known, iu the case ' ■*'% 
of many an animal A 
that has trotted or \ V-A - 
paced m 2:8ll or 
better. There ere 
on the farms of this 
country positively ' 
thousands of excel- y 
lent mares, which - 
have the grand o' 
qualities of endur- v .-V'b^k* 
a nce, disposition 
and capabilities of .,.- -4* ;' 
motherhood, but , . inSV\*iW-^ 
lack fashionable 
breeding,yet which v ' -A A 
are as likely as any ‘ 
others to drop a fast 
and valuable trot- ^ 
ter, if bred to the * 
right sire. 1 t 
should be borne in 
mind by owuors of 
such mares that it 
costs no more to raise a foal when the ser¬ 
vice-lee of the stallion is $100 than when it is 
$10, but the chances of realizing $1,000 from 
the more exjiensivo service are ten times great¬ 
er thuu art' the chances of realizing #100 from 
the cheaper service. There are true econo¬ 
mies and false economies; but it can safe¬ 
ly be said that it is always a false economy to 
breed u mare that is worth raising a colt 
from at all to an inferior stalliou because his 
fee is low, when the services of a decidedly 
superior horse can lit* hud at the expense of a 
few additional dollars. One fast and good 
colt is worth iu the market anywhere from 
five to 50 or 100 times as much as a poor colt. 
in the stud iu 1885, and, consequently, has 
very few sons or daughters old enough for 
public performances. 
Indeed, he sired hut 
ten colts foaled prior 
to 1886 that are now 
living. One of them, 
Oliver K., foaled in 
1880, was the sensa¬ 
tional trotter of 1886. 
He got a four-year- 
old record of 2:24)^, 
but this season aston, 
ished the entire coun¬ 
try, winning the $10,- 
000 purse at Charter 
Oak Park, Hartford, 
Conn., and in liis last 
race defeating the 
invincible, as was 
j&gS A supposed, Harry Wil- 
si&Sji || kes, at St. Louis. His 
jragglfl gjM record was reduced 
ifn this season to 2:16 Y, 
jj£j£y but he is looked upon 
as the most likely of 
K ij0H||l T,*. trotters to eclipse the 
record of Maud S. 
His owner sold him 
for $17,500, after the 
A '3v Hartford race, and 
'iJlKffi-i had won much more 
iS||fv ^ ' v than that with him 
L during the trotting 
^ iwipBrl' -A the year. 
E HKn Horse Sense.— 
j . For those who like to 
drive elephants, the 
i BSeUr d i&z \ Percherons and their 
rJ Sp-j r ' grades ora tine. I 
want horses with 
•^ffng'il •Jv-IV’a more sense and more 
life. It is easier to 
tone a nervy horse 
'/Elf* i down to good, steady 
■it)’} ‘ work than it is to put 
imf intelligence and ener- 
.! f f. i*»to a great lmn p 
J - of muscle.. 
Many colts are given 
-: i v ? V.- -> tempers by care- 
. • v v less currying. Some 
■,v ' - people curry a horse 
•T? ; kjl kflf < as though they want- 
,Siii’, ed to hurt him all 
they can. To scratch 
and grind a young 
colt will work just as 
it does to wash a boy’s 
face by poking soap 
mto his mouth and eyes. They will both 
come to hate the operation and the 
operator.1 don’t think much of the 
practice of bedding horses a foot or more deep 
with straw. Most horses lie down but a little. 
T have owned several horses that seemed never 
to lie down. Therefore, I consider it poor 
policy to put a great quantity of litter uuder 
them. “horseman.” 
KING WILKES (1867) 
prosperous farmer has one or more, which are 
the owners’ favorites for driving, because 
they specially evince the trotting disposition. 
The produce from such mares, when bred to a 
first-class trotting sire, may lie very valu¬ 
able animals, and will surely be worth more 
than if the Sira had been a “duug-hill.” 
Thera are few localities in this country 
where the farmer cannot conveniently obtain 
the service of a good stalliou, whose blood is 
such as to justify the expectation of good foals 
when coupled with such mures as l have indi¬ 
cated, At. Fig. 401 is an excellent likeness, 
from a photograph, of the stallion King Wilkes, 
owned by R. B. Conklin, 146 Center Street, New 
On the side of his graudam, Kiug Wilkes is 
rich iu Thoroughbred Hues,and from the strains 
that have been productive of trotters. He 
was foaled in 1S70, and whou very youug 
showed so much speed that he was given little 
service in the stud, but trained for the turf, 
on which he had a series of brilliant victories. 
In 1882 King Wilkes Wat a field of four at 
Pittsburgh, Pa., for a $1,500 purse, and ac¬ 
quired a record of 2:20k, and in 1883, at 
Utica, also for a purse of $1,500, he beat 
Frank, 2:19k;; Index, 2:21; Stephen G., 2:90V, 
and several others, and lowered his record to 
2:23. August 27, 1S84, at Hartford, he trotted 
a grand and memorable race. It was a first- 
<ilje JfjfriXsman 
A PRACTICAL MISSIONARY. 
A good bull is a missionary. His influence 
extends further aud does more to elevate mau- 
I 
