8 
PURE BRED DRAFT HORSES 
not make any better time over a given route than a horse could. The 
horse could carry just as big a load and the cost was much less.” 
Back of the horse industry the country must look into the breeding 
operations as the basis for the output of proper classes and number of 
horses to keep pace with the requirement in the United States. The 
breeding and raising of pure bred horses, which are primarily respon¬ 
sible for the production of good types, must receive due support and 
attention. To date census figures show that there were in 1919, 1,594,141 
colts (horses and mules) in the United States, indicating a decrease of 
22% from that of 1909. 2 This is discouraging, and following the sugges¬ 
tion of the Horse Association of America the number of foals per year 
should at least be equal to the number of horses replaced on the farm 
annually, which is 1,811,087 in 1920 2 
According to the “National Survey of' the Economic Status of the 
Horse,” 1 there were but 115,000 pure-bred draft horses of the six leading 
breeds, or 1-165 of the nineteen million horses on the farms and ranches 
in the United States in 1912. No doubt the total decrease in the number 
of foals during the ten-year period—from 1909 to 1919—, and the dis¬ 
proportionate small number of pure-bred horses compared to the total 
horse population on farms and ranches, is due to some extent to lack of 
knowledge regarding the proper and established methods of breeding, 
feeding, and management of breeding horses. 
