EDITORIAL. 
ia 
proven; but they have seen, on the other hand, that the horse is 
the more practicable and'economical for their purposes. What 
has been the result of this realization? Thinking men all over 
the country have begun seriously to consider ways and means 
of restoring as rapidly and as economically as is consistent with 
the gravity of the situation the great horse-breeding interests 
of our country that have been neglected for the past few years 
by many who have been deluded by the promises and exploita¬ 
tions of capitalists who have endeavored to force their visionary 
“ horseless age ” upon the people, in an effort to create a market 
for their commodity. We do not foretell an “ autoless age ” in 
the immediate future, nor perhaps ever, but we do predict a 
more sane view of the situation by those whose interests are 
involved. 
You can only hold men by their interests. Sentiment for the 
horse, or prejudice against the machine, can have no influence 
and must be left entirely out of the question. Their interests 
and not sentiment have set the farmers of New York State think¬ 
ing, since they have realized that they have allowed the horse- 
breeding industry of that great State to lapse 80,000 head behind 
their own annual requirements, as pointed out to them by Pro¬ 
fessor Harper of Cornell University. Just think of it, one of the 
best States in the Union for horse-raising, on account of its 
fertility and vast acreage of level grazing land, through negli¬ 
gence having to purchase from outside its borders 80,000 head 
in one year, for its own uses, at a cost of $16,000,000, when it 
ought to be selling a surplus after supplying its own markets. 
That the realization has quickened the interests of the farmers 
in the Empire State is evident from the movement started by 
Professor Harper for the organization of a Horse P>reeders’ As¬ 
sociation in that State, and by the action taken by Governor Dix 
in directing the Commissioner of Agriculture to take steps to 
learn what methods could be adopted for the purpose of stimu¬ 
lating this very important branch of animal husbandry on the 
part of breeders and farmers in the State. And we have no 
doubt but what this general interest in the horse-breeding indus- 
