Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-06-07
FIST GLASS HORSES
, Ample Reward Awaits Breeders who Pro-
duce Them. ~

q
q Isl duce Them. -
J Respecting horses. there is one par.
: ocular. only one. in which all ara
agreed: they should be handsome.
Large or small, fast or slow. black.
. bay, white or mixed, they will suit
somebody if symmetrical. This points
moral: appreciation of beauty is a
iivinely appointed faculty; not to re-
! ;pect and cultivate it is to ignore an
effective agency for suppressing the
, sensual and satanic and developing
spirituality and refinement A beau
tiful horse is Il constant qualification
to its owner; it is kindly cared for;
friendly relations are established; tho
noble beast repays every kindness by
faithful service-it is very bad for own
srs not to be attached to their horses.
Horses. like men, are sometimes rather
unlovely; better breeding and just the
right training will make them all
right. Unfortunately. nineteen horses
out of twenty fall below Il proper stand
ard; they are noticeably defective in
their makeup-head and heels too
large; muscles. name and tail too
small; bones too high neck and head
too low; parts not compactly joined
together-''composit order" care
lessly composed. A horse may. accord
ing to the service required of him, be
a 1.000-pcund buggy horse, a 1900
pound coacher, a 1, 6OO-pound cart horse;
all these are wanted; but each class
should be bred and kept distinct from
every other class. PrOmiscuous breed
ing-breeding to no definite end. after
no definite model; haphazard mixture
of odds and ends-has filed this coun-
try with unstable horses. not pleasant
to look at and not effective for service.
You may go through town after town
in Western New York, making thor
ough search for a coach team that a
Rochester banker or railroad lawyer
will consent to ride after. without find
ing i'll have seen it tried repeatedly.
The banker and the lawyer were will
ing to pay $1,000 for the team. but
they couldn't find it Our finest mares
bring too much money to raise colts
from, so we sell them to go into the
cities. or keep them in the harness. or
if we do raise colts from them, breed to
poor stock-getters.
Selecting our best mares, and breed
ing them to the best French coach STALL
ions. and continuing to breed to them
without crossing with any thing else,
in Il few years we can raise fine carriage
horses with much certainty and profit.
French coachers have been bred for
great many years under supervision of
experts appointed by the French Gov
eminent. While good carriage horses
are in demand at good prices, there is
also great lack of good draft horses.
Our horses are VIGOROUSLY too small; the
popularity of the Blackhawks a few
years ago. and the craze for trotting
horses, caused breeders to patronize
small stations till there is an overstock
of that kind. A reaction has set in. and
now we find many sacrificing every
thing to size. They breed to sleepy.
clumsy, loose-made stations, flabby and
tiatfooted. simply because they weigh
eighteen or twenty hundred-Quality is
sacrificed to quantity. The markets
certainly call for more large horses,
but they must stand the pavements;
IHeJ muSI nave FlSOT as well as size;
must have action and energy. This.
then, the American hCVsebreeder should
do: fix on some particular class of
horses to raise; select model; adopt Il
standard and work to it-decide on the
color, size, shape, speed suitable to the
class to be propagated; reject from the
breeding stock every animal that
doesn't come up to the requirements.
Continuous breeding in a definite time
establishes certain characteristics; it
is just as easy to establish a breed Of
black, ten-hundred, fOur-minute (plen-
ty fast enough) buggy horses. as it was
to fix the red In the Devon cattle. AS
the case now stands, not one farmer in
fifty can make plausible guess at the
color. size, shape of the colt his mare
will have. Is the ambition of progress
i've farmers satisfied when they have
bred to the fastest trotter, the biggest
Clyde or Percheron. or the cheapest
scrub? Honor and fortune await Amer
leans who will DO for horses what Bake
well, Bates. Cruikshank. did tor sheep
and cattle.-Hugh Z. Brooks, in N. Y
Tribune.