The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-11-16
Docs II Paw to Raise Scrub Horses,

Not long ago, at sale in Kansas
City, scrub ponies from Texas sold for
about s33 per head. At the same time
fair horse or mare was readily worth
$3.50 or more. Even the simplest
tyro can guess at the reason for the
difference between the prices for which
the animals sold. No law is palmer
than that which compels the producer
rior price. and none is more just. There
is ready demand in this country for
good size, style, power and brain, and
this demand is not likely to grow less
unless a general financial panic shall
come to disturb prices of all property.
As with beeves, the cost of raising a
really valuable and readily-salable ami
NAL is little, if any, greater than that
of keeping the scrub. The amount of
food required for keeping the
scrub in good condition will be
fully as great as will that of keep
ing the more valuable animal; the
care and stable-room needed will be the
same in either case. 1t is not until the
time comes when the beasts must be sold
that the difference between the two ap-
pears most plainly.
A colt of good size and form is about
as salable piece of property as is any
other farm product. A scrawny, ill
shaped little beast can scarcely be sold
for enough to pay the actual cost of
production. As with almost all other
property. the bai influence of a falling
market is felt first and most severely by
those who have inferior articles to sell,
so that he who has only scrub horses
and scrub cattle to offer will find that
he will have to seek long for buyer,
when his neighbor, who has good stock,
is besieged by those who wish to buy.
AS long as the butcher can buy fat and
well-buit bullocks he will not accept
thin and ill-shaped ones. There is for
him more profit and more pleasure in
handling the better animal. The buyer
of horses will pass dozen inferior
ponies, offered at a low price, to pay 3
good figure for a good horse, because
he knows well that he can always find
buyers for the latter.
While it may not be policy for the
farmer to pay one thousand dollars for
a very good horse from which to breed,
it certainly will pay to secure the SER
vice of the very best one he can pay
for. 1t is a question as to what one
can afford to pay in breeding stock.
The yearling colt from one mare, or
from one horse, may sell readily for
two hundred dollars, while another of
the same age, out of an inferior dam, or
by an inferior sire, may be almost I'M
salable at twenty dollars, and this too
when both colts have had precisely the
same treatment. In all this there is
nothing new. The facts have beer
stated again and again, but any one
who has spent much time in travelling
through the country will admit that
good reason exists for iterating and re-
iterating the lesson.
Whenever European nations 90 to
war a demand arises for American
horses for their cavalry. This demand
is at once OF benefit to those who have
sound and suitable horses to offer, but
he who has not had wisdom enough
to raise such stock is benefited only
very remotely, if at all. The great cities
always want more large, strong draft
horses that they can get at any reason
able price. The demand for such ami
mails is good even in times which can
not be called prosperous, and when
scrubby stock is almost unstable.
Does it pay, then, to give food. shelter
and care to the latter?-N. y Tribune.