The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-06-17

carcasses than you can on expect. ing the available supply of brood mares to foal enough colts to grow into enough three-year-oldS to haul any sizable proportion of the nation about its business. It takes three years to raise a horse that you can ! get anything out of, and there aren't even enough stallions available t seems, to service the mares.
 The total hoss population of the country in 194l, according to the Department of Agriculture, was around 10 million head, four miu!on of which were on farms. In l93o there were IS million head, in 1920 there were 20 million. The peak was in the 1912-l9l7 period when there were 2l million head. Ccm- pare those figures with the estimat- ed 30 million passenger cars and five million EtlsseS and trucks Tn service before this gas and rubber shortage developed and you see how big the gap is and how hopeless It would be to try filling 1t with horse- flesh.
 NOT A CHANCE!
 Even if you include the mule pop ulation, the figures don't even come close. That's four million head or better today, as against a top figure of six million in 1924.
 So, even with brisk market for horses ana mules in various centers where such flesh is ped- dled, there isn't chance of solv- ing this crisis for farm work, city delivery or just plain joy rides down lovers lane, to use the rorse-and-buggy -age name f o r the betting park.
 The Department of Agriculture, which is supposed to know every thing about anything rural, has been trying to get out some lr- formation on the possibilities for the return of the horse, but It's experts can't agree on policy The Bureau of Animal Husbandry thinks horses are wonderful, while the Bureau of Agricultural Eco- monies contends that horses are uaeconomic, expensive, wasteful, inefficlent, slow, outmoded, trou- blesome and useless except possi- bly, when saddled for amusement purposes on 8 race track or bridle path and for rough country oper- ations like herding cattle. The result of this controversy has been that no statement has been issued and the issue is being allowed to take its own course.
 HARNESS HITCH
 Horse traders who are given the Job of organizing delivery stables have so far been able to contract for feed. But they run into snags on fittings. Steel tires for wagon wheels, 1t seems, are harder to get than rubber. Harness is now made only for heavy trucking or racing, and there are priorities on leather. Medium weight delivery harness is practically unobtainable. The same thing goes for wagon hardware. As for drivers and grocms, they're rarer than machine tool designers and bomber pilots.
 Of course the cavalry accounts for a. large part of the useful hoss population today, in spite of mech anization. There probably wouldn't t be any horses at all available to- day if 1t. weren't for the Army Remount Service, which for-years has seen to 1t that good blood stallions have been scattered around the country to, breed a tough grade of colt--not thor oughtreds-that could be picked up when needed. But the Army knows where they all are and they get them as they reach ma turity. 7.
 As for the stockmen, they'd rather raise beef. More money in it. There's always a demand for meat and you can sell calves when they're yearlings.