THE DRAFT-HORSE

is gaining in popularity at the West; the entries at all our fairs show this. There are English and French, or Clydesdale and Norman, both sufficiently alike to be classed together. Great weight in the collar and sluggish action are their predominant characteristics. I cannot imagine these mammoth and much-consuming machines to be fitted to the present wants of Western agriculture. In the parts of Europe from whence they come, the roads are made hard and smooth for the drawing of heavy loads; first, markets are near by and human labor is cheap and ready; in fact, the people are thick. Here, the roads are rough and often deep, and it is sometines difficul to tell what they are made for. The selling-price is more or less remote; the farmer is his own man-of-all-work, and they do say our people are thin. Over there, the motto is, "slow, but sure;" here, it is "the devil take the hindmost." I believe that the demand for the pure draft horse, as an economical animal, will be confined, in this country, to the heavy truck-work of large cities. This will be a comparatively low market.

The question of a cross comes in here. Of course, almost all the draft importations have been stallions. They are brought here with the laudable intention of increasing the size of our horse stock by crossing on our lighter native mares. This method, according to the best authorities, is not good breeding. When there is great disparity in size the weight should be on the side of the female, where the capacity to carry, nourish and perfect the fœtus resides. If this is reversed, it is asserted that the produce will be liable to malformation, and likely to grow up unsound; the casket is too small for its contents, and this last becomes cramped in consequence. If this physiological view be correct, any cross with the draft stallion will be a failure, and breeding together the offspring will deepen the disaster.

There remains still another sort of horse

THE CARRIAGE-HORSE.

As an individual breed it does not exist in this country. From what I have read, it has its best representative in the Cleveland Bay of England, the fruitful mother of improved breeds. Some of these animals have been imported, but I understand that they have

left no lasting hoof "prints on the sands of time." It is described as invariably bay, a little over 16 hands in height, hardy and powerful, with tendinous legs, wear and tear feet, and showy rather than speedy action. This is a fair portrait of the now-a-day carriage horse, the animal, in my opinion, the most desirable for the farmer to raise. The market for carriage horses is extensive, ill-supplied and necessarily high-priced. The promptest buyers are the wealthy of the cities. These people soon drive their horses to death or decrepitude. Perhaps morally, there might be some objection to selling a generous animal into such self-killing servitude. But morals and horse-flesh, it is said, do not work double. An animal of the carriage kind, falling below the standard of fashion, would, from his substance and activity, still be useful for the farm and road.

The above breeding recommendation of mine is like the Frenchman's flea-powder, it was warranted to kill, but you first had to catch the flea. This is the horse, but how are you going to get him? To the solution of this question I shall bring some authorities. Herbert says: "The Cleveland Bay, in its natural and unmixed form, is a tall, powerfully built, bony animal, averaging, I should say, 15 hands 3 inches in height; rarely falling short of 15 or exceeding 16.

"The Cleveland Bays are sound, hardy, active, powerful horses, with excellent capabilities for draft and good endurance, so long as they are not pushed beyond their speed, which may be estimated at from six to eight miles an hour on a trot.

"From these Cleveland Bays, however, though in their pure state nearly extinct, a very superior animal has descended, which, after several steps and gradations, has settled down into a family, common throughout all Yorkshire and more or less all the Midland counties, as the farm horse, and riding or driving horse of the farmers, having about two crosses, more or less, of blood on the original Cleveland stock."

Youatt: "The Cleveland mare is crossed by a three-fourths or thoroughbred horse of sufficient substance and height, and the produce is the coach horse most in repute, with his arched crest and high action."

Blaine: "The Cleveland Bays are known to owe their most valuable properties to early crosses of the race horses of those times with the best of the heavy breeds."

Walsh, better known as "Stonehenge:" "These horses are chiefly the result of a cross between the old Cleveland horse (now extinct) and the thoroughbred horse."

Low: "The true Cleveland Bay may be termed a breed, from the similitude of characteristics presented by the individuals of the stock. It has been formed by the same means as the hunter, namely, by the progressive mixture of the blood of the race-horse with the original breeds of the country. But a larger kind of horse has been used as the basis and a longer standard adopted by the breeder.

"The demand for these horses has long been very great in London and all the opulent towns of the kingdom, and the number carried abroad is large."

These extracts have been made from the writings of men facile principes in horse lore. They point out a clear line of breeding for the carriage horse, namely, the use of the thoroughbred on the common stock of the country. This will come, of course, from the side of the stallion. He must be no spindling, flighty beast, but a stocky, level-headed animal; in other words the concentration of a horse. If such a one is not convenient, the last alternative with us is the highbred trotter of fine form. In his case, "two-forty" ought to be ruled out, and only size, shape and stately action insisted on.

As for "the old mare" before mentioned, she might be willing in any event, and the eyes of ownership are blind. Nevertheless, she ought to have bulk, soundness, and a constitution unimpaired by toil. Thereafter, the nearer she approaches the ideal aimed at the better.

Low, in speaking of the carriage horse, says: "To rear this class of horses the same principles of breeding should be applied as to the rearing of the race-horse himself. A class of mares, as well as of stallions, should be used having the properties sought for. It is in this way only that we can form and perpetuate a true breed in which the properties of the parents shall be reproduced in their de scendants. The district of Cleveland doubtless owed the superiority which it continued to maintain in the production of this beautiful race of horses to the possession of a definite breed, formed not by accidental mixture, but by continued cultivation."

To conclude, I ask your indulgence for myself, but not for my subject. It is true, there are more taking titles for a paper than

"Horses," but there are few of greater practical importance-a touch of the epizootic proved that. It stopped the wheels of trade throughout the land; it stilled the wheels of the wagon, the steamer and the locomotive; and it brought home to man his dependence on the humbler animal.

According to Ruggles, there were in Wisconsin, in 1850, 30,000 horses; in 1860, 116,000, and in 1870, 252,000. These figures speak for the present strength and growing greatness of the horse.

Mr. ANDERSON. I think this is an important subject which we farmers ought to express our opinions about. I am very much in favor of farmers raising their own horses. I have advocated for years the raising of heavy draft horses, the crosses of the Clydesdale horse with our mares, for instance. I think 1,400 pounds good weight for plow-horses, rather heavy for roadsters. I think the best thing we can do is to breed horses for our own use, and the best breed I think is from the Clydesdale horse with our common mares.

Mr. MITCHELL. I think the horse that I have given is the proper horse for the farmers use, sufficiently active for the road, and sufficiently heavy for the plow or wagon.

Mr. ROBBINS. I am in favor of a lighter horse than the heavy draft horse. In my experience of thirty years, I believe that a horse for the farm should not weigh over 1,200 pounds. I have a team eighteen years old that I raised myself. I was offered six hundred dollars for them in this market when they were eight years old. They are my carriage team. I drive them seventy-five miles a day when I want to, and do my farm work with them equally well. They are a cross with the Canadian and Bullrush, Morgan on the father's side and the Canadian mare on the mother's side. I can plow an acre more a day with those horses than I can with the heavier horses, and I can cultivate two acres of corn in a day more than I can with the heavy sluggish horses.

Mr. WHITING. I wish to ask one question. The gentleman has recommended us as farmers in the first place not to raise any horses. Now I wish to know what he would do?

Mr. MITCHELL. I would import them. They come from the south and it is simply a difference in transportation, and that is much less than raising them.

President BASCOM. There was one remark in the paper, that the

2:40 horse ought to be ruled out. I think that is so. I think that horse-racing is injurious to farmers. What I object to is turning a state or county fair into a horse-race in any large or considerable part. I think that the horse race will ultimately eat out everything else in the fair. It is the most attractive thing to the populace, and therefore in order to draw and get good fees at the gate, more and more attention will be paid to the horse-racing and horse-racing day. And more and more will people come to see horses race, and the prizes will be given larger and larger on the horse-racing, with a consequent reduction in other departments, and the interest in the fair itself will decrease.

The question of horses, it seems to me, ought to rest primarily on the relation of the horse to the farm, and in that relation it ought to be taken into the fairs, and it should be bred in relation to farm interests and presented on the fair-ground in that light. Racing has no more connection with agriculture than outside enjoyment and proceedings, simply because it happens to come on that day. I don't object to seeing horses at a fair. But we are educating our young men at the fairs, and they have already an undue predilection for races, and an undue failure to appreciate the good qualities of farm and carriage-horses. Now let us direct their attention to the substantial purpose of the horse and not make jockeys out of them. I cannot quite explain it, but somehow if a man attaches himself too strongly to a horse it does him a mischief. When he gets to be a jockey there is a falling off of manhood about him.

Mr. WEBSTER. I have a word to say in this matter. I don't agree exactly with my friend here, the farmer Mr. Anderson. The most of us are not situated as he is perhaps. We are poor, we are not able to keep so many horses, and my experience is that the horse that will do me on the farm must do me on the road, and that about a 1,200 pound horse will answer that purpose.

Now, if we had plenty of horses we might do as this gentleman does, but all of us can't manage that. I think we are a little too fast on this racing and have overdone the thing perhaps. I have two horses that I put on the track, thinking perhaps that I was going to beat somebody. Well, I put them on the track at a cost of about $60, and then got up to about three minutes; and of course I was beaten. So I said to my boys, now you will learn