Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-11-22
The Horse Product.

Nothing can be clearer than the fact
that the day is past for profitable rear
ing horses at great expense in the hope
OF obtaining remuneration by sales at
fancy prices. OF course, here and
there a man may happen to produce a
Rarus or Edwin Forest, but to establish
an elaborate and expensive breeding
farm, with the expectation of turning
out animal wonders like these would be
even more chimerical than to establish
mining apparatus so expensive as to
find justification in nothing but a daily
product OF nuggets of gold. The fancy
men that pay fancy prices for fancy
horses and earn (0 fancy sums with
them, are those who fancy the pool-box
and the other devious ways of the gam
bier. The class who constitute the buy
ers in the only legitimate and perma-
nent market for the higher class horses
are business men of the cities who can
give but an hour or two daily to recrea-
ton; recreation that can furnish proper
exhileration most readily in rush from
the city and livery breezing in the
country air behind a flying trotter
But, only few of these men publish
a sensational newspaper like Bonner, or
own millions of railroad stock like Van
derbilt; and can pay such enormous
prices for their means of recreation.
The average market must be gagged by
the pocket of the average business men
OF the city. To produce horses profit
able for such market can only be done
by studying the cheapest method CON
sistent with the best product. I,nagin-
mgs of wonderful 'luck" must be laid
aside and studies of economy substitu-
ted
lst. Training or developing stock
further than moderate handling" must
be discarded by the breeder for the rea-
son that trainers are usually an I'M
scrupulous and dangerous set; and even
at best are very expensive luxury.
I'd. lie who expects to get his income
from horse product must raise such
stock as will command good price,
when exhibiting his form, style and step
under the ordinary conditions of the
road, the pasture, or the halter.
3D.. Next to avoiding the expense of
training by breeding born trotters' is
the need of owning your own stallion;
and, instead of keeping him as in band
box, using him on the road sufficiently
to give him health, hardness, docility
and tendency to stoutness of limbs.
Many fashionably bred horses have been
sold for less than the cost of the sire s
service; for the fancy notions inspired
by the prices paid for marvellous trotters
include fancy charges for stud service.
This expense avoided, great step is
taken toward an economical horse pro-
duct
4th. Brood mares may frequently
be managed so as to earn their own
keeping and the foals be all the better
for it. A life of Incidence in the pas
ture tends to largeness of viscera and
smallness of limb The opposite ten
dency should be sought in the road
stock and only be assured by road work.
Remember the great trotting families
all trace back to some noted road
mare We believe that to the fact that
he landed in Pennsylvania, where he was
coupled with road mares instead of in
the South, where most imported thor
oughbreds were taken, to be coupled
with race mares, is the reason why Mes
senger fgnres more than all others in
trotting pedigrees.
9th. Let foals be generously fed, re-
ceiving robust, but not fancy care.
The former is cheapest, the latter most
enervating.
AS for draft stock the same policy
will hold; consistent with keeping good
stock, generously fed, keep dozen er-
pense : Tiator Western Stock Journal.