IMPROVEMENT OF HORSES. 
173 
majority of horse producers of the importance of breeding none 
but the best for the various uses to which they are accustomed 
to be put, the need of such associations is even greater than in 
England, France and Russia, where the necessities of war have 
given rise to a demand for horses of superior quality, and 
where the wealthy nobility, owners of immense estates and nu¬ 
merous herds, have the needed stimulus and the requisite means 
for raising the best stock independent of government aid. 
Suppose we had such an association, or two or three of them 
in Wisconsin, under the management of enterprising and com¬ 
petent men, who, at the expense of the company, would make 
judicious importations of stallions and breeding mares, and 
proper selections from among our own Wisconsin stock, reject¬ 
ing all such as would be likely to produce other than the very 
best offspring ; suppose, further, such association to establish 
the wisest regulations for training the horses so produced, thus 
testing and developing their powers, and then to hold an annual 
exhibition—either independently or in connection with the State 
Agricultural Fair ; and who of all who hear me to-day will 
doubt that within ten years our horses would be worth ten mil¬ 
lions instead of five as now? 
Such associations for the improvement of neat cattle have 
been eminently successful in Ohio and Kentucky, and I can see 
no good reason why a similar organization in this State for the 
improvement of horses should not be productive of like results. 
There are men here present who are fully competent to the in¬ 
auguration and successful conduct of such an enterprise, and 
I shall cherish the hope that the next Fair of this character 
that I may have the pleasure of attending will be known to this 
country as the First Annual Exhibition of tiib Wisconsin 
Association for the Improvement of Horses. 
