The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1899-06-09

IToI. II. Davenport, In an address
to horsemen, said:
! would emphasize the Importance
OF good sires. These mares will not
be purely bred animals; they would
be too expensive. They will be sim
ply good. vigorous specimens. capab e
OF giving plenty Of milk. The quality
must come from the sire, where quail
ity means most, because one animal
can impart it to so many. Such asso-
Citations as these can render the horse
Interests a valuable service by using
every influence to hasten the day of
stallion inspection and license here in
America. This farmer we are con-
sidering is not a horseman; that Is, is
not able to detect the slighter faults
OF animals. The hook may be slightly
too narrow, or the leg little crooked,
or the bone not quite fiat enough, or
the loin little light, and he will not
be able to detect il. / know a farmer
who considers himself something of a
horseman who yet did not notice a
hind leg of a colt so poor at the hook
that 1t was certain to go to pieces.
know part-bred Percheron stallion
that is considered great horse with
the farmers because he takes fat like
hog and has heavy, arching neck,
but his sickle hook gives him leg so
bent as to entirely dlsQualify him in
the eye of even a fair judge. So do
other parts escape the notice of a class
of good men who are not at all ignor-
ant but whose information and ex-
pert knowledge lie along other lines.
I he inspector and the law should hep
them out. AS it is now, the owner OF
strictly first-class, well-bred and reg
istered stallion has no chance out over
the country as compared with the own
er of a part-bred horse that Will fatten
readily, and that, costing but frac-
ton of the other, can be stood for per-
haps only two or three dollars less
and get all the custom. This compels
the owner of the good stallion to cut
prices to a point where in order to Sc
cure decent returns so much service Is
taken as to render next to worthless
a large share of the colts gotten. We
shall produce plenty Of scalawag
horses until the part-bred stallion is
driven out of business, and that will
be done only by system of inspec-
ton. 1t costs as much to raise a poor
horse as 1t does a good one. The de-
ficient hook or loin is not a thing that
takes less feed. 1t is no element OF
cheapness until it comes before the old
horseman in the great markets, and
the general horse raiser must be in
sured against his own foolishness in
this matter by a thorough system of
inspection. Until that time comes the
great breeders and improvers OF horses
will be subject to a ruinous competition
from part-bred stations.
The system that has been in vogue
has produced some good horses, but
it has produced a good many more poor
ones. The horse is q highly developed
animal, and all his parts are developed
far beyond their natural state. II, in
a given individual, one part is not fully
developed it cannot stand the strain
put upon it by the other and better de-
veloped parts, and it is with a horse
as with a chain, or a tile drain, the
whole is no better than the poorest
spot What a mixed and Heterogeneous
mass OF horsenesh we have been guilty
of producing! And yet the stalioneer
and the law are more in the blame
than the farmer. The horse raiser
should fix his mind definitely upon the
class OF horses that he proposes to pro-
duce, choose his stallion accordingly
and depend upon him for that quality
that always distinguishes the excellent
from the ordinary. He should never,
sleeping or waking forget his own
limitations, but remember that while
the professional horseman must pro-
duce the breeder, the racer, and the
phenomenal individuals out of the best
material of the world, yet that the pro-
duction of the great mass of COM
mercial horses out of common mares
and by approved sires is his own pc
culiar field, in which good profits can
always be realized. II the farmer keeps
his head and does not produce worth
less stuff. Cheap horses are recruited
with sufficient rapidity from the ranks
aboTc, both by age and accident, and
we cannot afford to grow them as a
business.