The Troubles of the Farm. The Wonders of Alfalfa. 
Vol. LVIIL No. 2573. NEW YORK, MAY 20, 1899. u per year. 
THE FARMER’S MARE. 
13 SHE A SOURCE OF INCOME, 
Or an Unnecessary Expense? 
The Brood Mare’s Value.— At this season, when 
attention is especially called to the subject of horse 
breeding, every thrifty farmer who owns a brood 
mare should come to some conclusion as to her actual 
value in order to determine whether or not she has 
proved a profitable investment. By thus reckoning 
up the mare’s account, the farmer will, also, settle to 
his own satisfaction a question which may or may 
not have previously occurred to him. namely, whether 
the farmers whom I have interviewed on the subject 
have freely confessed that their horses might more 
correctly be described as expensive necessaries. In 
nine out of every ten cases such as I refer to, the 
trouble has been attributed to the class of brood mare 
kept, and the class of stallion to which she has been 
bred year after year. The mares, as a rule, have been 
found to be either past their prime, or extremely 
aged, and of poor color, such as washy sorrel, rusty 
brown or fl a-bitten gray. In expression sour, they 
have had long and narrow bodies, shoulders set 
straight rather than sloping well back; their hind 
quarters droop; the tail is set low ; and the body is 
list. The mare herself may never have seen the day 
when she could trot faster than a four-minute gait 
for a very short distance, and probably, not one of the 
cheap, so-called trotting stallions, to which she has 
been bred, has ever been known to get a fast trotter; 
yet the farmer will persist in breeding her again and 
again in the hope that some day the mare will produce 
a “ wor d-beater ”. He will continue to do this despite 
the fact that the mare has proved an absolute failure 
as a producer, none of her colts having differed from 
others in the neighborhool, and none sold for more 
than $100—some at much less—at four or five years 
old. Possibly, two of her foals are unsalable at any 
POOR NATIVE MARE AND HACKNEY FOALS. Fig. 153. 
HACKNEY AND TROTTING FOALS. Fig 154. 
A NATIVE NEBRASKA MARE. Fig. 153. 
A TYPICAL HACKNEY COLT. Fia. 155. 
or not he may properly regard himself as a factor in 
the horse-breeding industry of this country—an in¬ 
dustry vast in scope, exceedingly lucrative when 
economically managed, and in these times of demand 
for only high-class stock, a business which should be 
wholly under the control of the farmer. 
Of the thousands of farmers in the eastern and 
middle States, who are unceasing in their efforts to 
maintain and increase the fertility of their lands, and 
are most particular in their choice of live stock as 
“machines for the conversion of herbage and other 
foods into money ”, not more than 10 per cent regard 
their horses as p'-ofPable investments. A majority of 
carried on long, thin legs. Notwithstanding these 
poor shapes, many such mares show no coarse hair on 
their legs, and when they shed their Winter coats, 
their skin looks so fine that their owners declare the 
mares to be exceedingly well bred, and should, there¬ 
fore, be maintained without being required to per¬ 
form more than a very slight portion of the daily 
work on the farm. 
A Fine Skin Deceptive. —It is this fine skin on 
his mare that, in my opinion, upsets the farmer’s cal¬ 
culations, and particularly so, if she happens to be 
the half-sister or first cousin to some horse which, 
perhaps at 12 years old, managed to get into the 2:30 
price, because small, and these are kept to do the 
work whica the mare herself ought to perform, and 
thus three animals remain on the place where one 
should be ample. 
This picture is by no means overdrawn. On the 
contrary, it portrays exactly the situation on many 
farms to-day. When we add to this the fact that the 
owners of such mares are endeavoring to produce 
from them a class of horse entirely different from that 
for which there is a good demand, we are forced to 
the conclusion that the farmer, who, as I have already 
said, should control the horse-breeding industry, has, 
actually, little or no voice in the matter. The situa- 
