The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1919-07-31

ing an outlet for spending an income
earned in some other business. If ]
find that some practice on my farm
isn't making money, / try to, find the
reason and change, if possible, to a
better way. Like thousands of our
best farmers, bought tractors be-
cause thought they could be used te
advantage on my farm. / have owned
several direrent makes. The agents
seemed able to each time to persuade
me that tractors were all right but
that l had been unfortunate in the
make I had bought each proceeding
purchase. This venture cos. me
$4,000 which Vas lost inside OF che
year, and the lcsSon learned is that
l can till my acres goo! sal cheap
Ell, a great Geai better, and lnucn
more satisfactorily with the help ]
can hire, by using good iraft horses
than 1 can with tractors. thought
could surely deliver my apple cror
with tractor. The salesman assured
me that one man could take five or
six wagon loads of apples, one tied
behind the other, and deliver them in
town A miles away as quickly as a
man with a team could deliver one
load If it were true that one mar
could do the work of six, would be
a splendid policy to follow this prac-
tice, but it wouldn't work. l had ar
expert mechanic employed on my
farm by the year. He got this tractor
mired down in the orchard until i
almost buried itself because there
had been some rain. He made few
trips to town, and then the president
of the turnpike company stopped him
because he had almost ruined tbs
road. | had to abandon the use of
the tractor for this purpose entirely.
l thought I could surely sell it back
to the man I got it from because ]
had only used it for round trips. I
cost me $2,250 in the first place, and
l kept coming DOWN in my offers to
this salesman until I finally agreed
to take $1,000 for it-good as new of
course, but he wouldn't take it back
saying he was not in the market for
old tractors.
"A pure bred mare that will raise a
colt that I can sell for $500 at wean-
ing time, or a grade draft mare that
will produce $500 gelding and dc
the work on my farm while raising
these colts, is better investment
than tractors that raise no little
tractors and in a few years are worr
out. The man who works his land
with good draft horses instead
tractors as rule has better credit at
his bank than has the tractor farm
er. The reason is he is taking less
risk of loss. ~
"Percheron breeders have by far
the most popular draft breed in tie
+ United States. With the return OF
better horse prices which is now an
assured fact, there is everything tc
encourage the farmer to produce hi"'
class Percherons. He cannot possibly
go wrong if he used good breeding
animals and then feeds out the off
spring properly. Breeders have beer
decidedly slack the last two or thre'
years in taking care of their stud
colts because they have not sold yer
readily, particularly the ordinary
kind. I look for reasonably GOOD
trade for stations next spring anC
an unusually big demand is bound TX
come by 1921. If breeders are not
extremely careful this trade is going
to be upon us before we know it anC
4 lot of us will not have our colts
grown out well enough to get the biz
nrices. Every breeder should erect
grass paddocks to run his stud colt.
in so that they can get plenty of on
door exercise, and an abundance O.
blue grass pasture. That is what j
takes to grow bone and musci., and t.