would know them. Do not breed a mare that can not trot or pace fast to a slow Horse and expect a record breaker.

Do not try to own too many. You had better sell three second class mares and buy one first class one.

Take care of her and her produce. You will make more money out of one good on. than out of half a dozen poor ones.

Break and track your colts young. Do not work them enough to make them unsound, because the unsoundness reduces their value more than the speed developed enchances it.

If you are breeding with an eye to speed, then purchase mares that can trot or pace fast themselves, or are producers of speed. Then mate the mare with a sire that has shown his ability to go fast and sire speed. Both sire and dam should not have less than three crosses of standard and producing blood. That being the case, the foals being proparly fed and well cared for, you need have no hesitation in expecting good results.

One of the greatest errors that breeders commit is, they do not feed young stock enough to keep them strong and growing.

All sensational colts that I have known have been well fed and their growth rather forced by high feeding and strong exercise.

Young animals that go fast must have the strength and power to carry their gait for a mile or further.

That can only be accomplished in one way, by feeding and exercise.

By maturing your stock early, you make quicker returns. You add to your chances of producing sensational performers and stake winners.

Young stock are seldom furnished with a proper supply of clean water. Many of them are kept in illy ventilated stables. They are not properly groomed. They are allowed to become lousy, and a majority of them are wormy, all of which if not properly attended to causes loss.

Breeders must also remember the necessity of keeping their stock advertised. In order to sell fast stock, you must let purchasers know what you have for sale. By keeping your name before the public, you will find an outlet for the produce of your farm. You can not make money breeding trotters and pacers, if you can not sell them.

However, the market for large and handsome carriage horses and fast road horses v never better than it is to-day. On the other hand the country is fast filling up with a host of scrub trotters and pacers, that it would have been wisdom on the part of their breeders to have destroyed them when foaled, for the expense of rearing a scrub is almost as much as if he were a good one.

The business of breeding trotting and pacing horses is a profitable one if properly followed, but to make it so you must open your eyes and imitate the successful breeder and profit by their experience.

President Levering: The program announces that the discussion is to be opened by Prof. T. Armstrong, Mt. Union, Stark county, Ohio. Is Prof. Armstrong present? [No response.]

The Chair: As Prof. Armstrong is not present, any gentleman present having any thing to say in the way of discussion on the paper, will now have an opportunity. [No response.]

The Chair: If all consent, it is all right. The next exercise on the programm is a paper, "Where the Draft Horse Excels and Pays," by Newton Rector, Kinderbrook, Pickaway county, Ohio.

Mr. Newton Rector, of Kinderbrook, Ohio, then read to the Institute the following paper:

WHERE THE DRAFT HORSE EXCELS AND PAYS.

The first importation of draft horses came from France about twenty-five years ago. Very soon other importations came from Scotland and England. From that small beginning we have to-day a grand breed of horses that for agricultural purposes, for heavy hauling in our large cities, and indeed, for all heavy draft work have no peer. No other breed has even attempted to supplant the draft horse, because they all lack weight and power; two important points to be considered. The census of 1890 gives the whole number of horses in the United States at about 15,000,000, and estimates that one half of those in use are required for rapid draft purposes. During the year 1890 the Chicago horse market received about 95,000 horses, and in 1891 near 100,000. At other cities the horse markets were abundantly supplied. At all the large cities the supply of heavy horses found ready sale at good prices. By referring to the Chicago horse market for last December you will see that draft teams weighing 3,200 and 3,300 pounds brought $400. Spans weighing 3,500 and 3,600 pounds would sell readily at $450 and $500. On the same market chunks sold for $60, $80, and $100.

I heard a gentleman who lives in central Illinois, whom I met at the fat stock show last November, say that he sold 17 head of three and four-year old Percheron geldings for $225 each. But they were high grades and weighed from 1,600 to 1,800 pounds. In conversation with other gentlemen at the same time the universal opinion was that the supply of good heavy draft horses was not equal to the demand. That we have a surplus of inferior horses of light weight that are neither fit for the road nor for draft purposes is admitted, and of such we always shall have a large supply, so long as we have the careless, aimless, shiftless breeders among us.

In our large cities the immense traffic in all its branches of commerce where thousands of tons of agricultural and manufactured articles are annually transferred from one depot to another, and from one point to another, heavy draft teams are required to draw the enormous loads of four and five tons. Light horses can not economically perform thislabor, and the very best heavy draft teams are short-lived when worked constantly at heavy hauling on hard and stony pavements, where every muscle is strained to its utmost tension. Large numbers of the very best and heaviest draft horses are annually required for use in the lumber regions. The constantly improving and ever-progressing demands of agriculture, where economy of labor is always an important factor, require heavy, quick walking draft teams to draw gang plows turning two, three and four furrows six and eight inches in depth; mowing machines cutting a six and seven foot swath; self binders with six and eight foot cutter bars; disc harrows cutting and pulverizing the soil to a depth of three and four inches; heavy iron rollers for compressing the soil, and eight and ten-hoed drills with fertilizer attachment; all these and many more we could name must be drawn by teams of weight and power. The great corn crop of 1891 is estimated at 2,000 million bushels, loaded into railroad cars forty feet long six hundred bushels to the car, this enormous crop will more than engirdle the earth. Our crop of wheat estimated at 600,000,000 bushels, loaded into wagons containing fifty bushels each, allowing thirty feet for each wagon and team, would encircle the globe two and one-half times. Add to this the great oat crop and other agricultural products of this the most prosper ous year in the history of our country, and remember that it was largely produced and must nearly all be hauled to feed, lot and market by horse power and that a large per cent. of this labor can be performed more economically by heavy draft teams than by light teams, and you can form some idea of the great and ever-increasing demand for teams of weight and power.

Draft horses can be raised and prepared for the market with less outlay of laber and capital than any other breed. The services of the very best stallions will cost fres

$20 to $25. The colt can be left in the stable and halter broken while the dam can de light farm work. They can be turned loose in a shed or stable the first and second winters with very little risk of blemishes. With oats and bran twice a day and plenty of good fodder and hay they will be in splendid condition for grass; at two years old they will be large enough for farm work. The mares can be bred and ever after they will pay their way. When four and five years old they are ready for market and will fetoh from $150 to $250 according to weight and quality. They require no costly outfit of sulkies, harness, blankets, shire-boots, quarter-boots, knee-boots, toe-weights, scalpers, etc.; do not have to make a tin cup record on a kite-shaped track; pools are never sold and book makers unknown in draft horse breeding. Farmers who raise draft horses as a rule raise steady boys with plenty of muscle and brains. A wealthy and influential Pickaway county farmer once owned a very fast and promising race horse. He was the proud father of a manly boy who began to show signs of going very fast also. The farmer wisely decided that a change must be made and he traded the thoroughbred for a splendid draft stallion. From that day to this he has never regretted the exchange. The moral is plain.

The craze for breeding coach horses that has prevailed for the last few years has stimulated the importation of hundreds of Cleveland bays, Yorkshire bays French Coach, German coach and English hackneys-a large majority have been of inferior quality and breeding. They have been introduced in many parts of the country and crossed indiscriminately on all classes of mares.

Many farmers who own good grade draft mares have very unwisely bred to these socalled coach stallions. The result is a great disappointment as the produce are inferior in quality and size, with no speed at the trot, unfit for the road and too light for draft. Farmers and breeders of heavy horses who have wisely continued to patronize only the very best imported draft sires will profit by the mistake of their near sighted-neighbor.

From 1875 to 1888 large numbers of draft stallions were imported and sold that were under size, very inferior in quality, and whose pedigree consisted of but one word"Imported”—at the same time many of the very best and purest bred stallions, backed by generations of careful breeding, came from England, Scotland, France and Belgium. During the last few years importers have as a rule brought over the very best horses they could buy, as there was no sale for inferior stock.

Among the different breeds we have to select from are the Suffolk, Punch, Belgian, French Draft, Clydesdale, English Shire and Percheron.

In numbers and popularity they probably rank in the order named. Mares of the different breeds and generally of good quality have also been imported. Indeed some of the finest individuals that money could buy have been brought to America. We have several large steeds of imported and pure bred draft horses of great excellence in the United States. Among them the renowned Clydesdale steed of Robert Halloway, with the great Cedric at its head. English shire breeders are represented by Burgess Bros who have a large steed, and Geo. E. Brown, with that invincible prize winner "Holland Major." But undoubtedly the greatest collection of noted and prize-winning draft horses to be found on either continent is collected at Oaklawn, the home of the Percherons where the great Brilliant surrounded by his sons and daughters of the third and fourth generation has no equal as a prepotent sire.

If ever there was a propitious time to embark in the breeding of high class draft horses, it is now. The very best pure bred mares can be purchased for $300 to $600. Stallions will cost from $1,000 to $2,000, and for choice animals $3,000 and $4,000. A draft stallion should weigh from 1,800 fbs. to 2,000 lbs., and mares from 1,600 lbs. to 1,900 Ibs., provided always that quality must not be sacrificed for size. If we expect to raise draft horses to excel and pay, raise draft horses exclusively and let other breeds severely alone. All successful breeders of improved stock have confined themselves to one breed. Abram Rennick made a name and fortune by breeding "Rose of Sharons." Col. Harris of Linwood, gives his whole attention to Cruickshank blood. Senator Stanford has

made a national reputation by judiciously crossing the blood of Electioneer, while Mark Dunham is known the world over as the most successful breeder of Percherons. W. live in the greatest country on earth. Eminent Americans who have traveled in for eign lands and have carefully studied the resources of different countries and nations declare that the United States is the garden spot of the world. Our corn crop for the year 1891 was the largest, with one exception, ever produced. The oat crop of 736,000, 000 bushels is the largest ever grown with one exception. The wheat crop is the largest ever produced in any country, and the average yield per acre is the highest ever grown in the United States. The aggregate of all cereals is the largest ever produced, and the total value is estimated at $1,582,224,198.

Marvelous as these facts appear, the truth remains that we have but begun to develop the wonderful resources of this magnificent country. Remember, my friends, that the noble draft horse is an indispensable factor in the production and marketing of this unprecedented cereal crop.

It is conceded by men of intelligence and wisdom that we are entering upon an era of unparalleled prosperity. Very soon the arid plains of the west, by a vast system of Irrigation, will be reclaimed and millions of acres added to our agricultural domain. Improved systems of agriculture will greatly increase the yield per acre of all kinds of crops. By a wise and systematic inspection of our meat product, both on foot and slaughtered, the markets of the world will be open to us. The increase of our popula tion at the rate of a million a year, with reciprocity and low tariffs, will give us a market both at home and abroad that will consume the vast manufactured and agricultural products of the United States. In all this increasing prosperity we shall have a constant demand and advancing prices for the handsome, intelligent, fast walking, heavy boned and powerful draft horse.

During the late civil war a rich southern planter found his home suddenly threatened with destruction by Union soldiers. He hastly buried a pot of gold in a field near by and with his family fled from the approaching enemy. He was killed in the southern army. When the war was over and the starry flag floating over every state in our Union proclaimed a united and free people, his children returned to the old plantation. His sons sought long and diligently for the hidden treasure and each year turned up the soil in hopes of finding it. But the shallow plowing and constant cropping only made land and family leaner and poorer. At last in sheer despair they bought a shining new steel plow and began to turn the soil deep and thorough, to increase its fertility. When lo! they turned up the "pot of gold."

Breeders of draft horses, let us harness the magnificent kings of agriculture to the shining steel gang-plows, and turning the soil wide and deep increase its fertility, while great crops of wheat and corn shall annually yield us "pots of gold.".

President Levering; Mr. Kling is marked on the program to open the discussion upon this paper, but Mr. Kling is not here. I understand he is unavoidably detained at home by sickness in his family. If there is any gentleman who has any thing to say upon this subject, it is now before the institute for discussion.

A Member: I believe the gentleman advocated working his draft horses at two years old. I would like to ask him if he considers it proper to work a draft horse at that age.

Mr. Rector: Mr. Chairman, I can answer that question by saying that a draft horse at two years of age properly developed, will weigh 15, 16, or 1700 pounds, and they can do light work at least without any trouble. The breeders of draft-horses breed them at two years of age.

A Member: Do you consider it safe to advise that they be worked at that age?

Mr. Rector: Yes, sir, if handled carefully. Of course, I would not allow every body to work them promiscuously, but I say if used carefully, it is well enough to begin to work them at that time. They will pay their way, but of course, I should work them moderately.

Mr. Phelps: I would like to ask the gentleman if he would consider the draft horse a good general purpose horse for farm work.

Mr. Rector: No, sir, I don't say I consider them a good horse for all kinds of work, but for farm work where we want to do more work than we have been in the habit of doing before, they are an economical horse to use. It is well enough to have light horses for some purposes, but the demand now is for the large draft animal. For breeding purposes the extensive breeders of the best horses scarcely ever use a stallion whose weight is less than 1,900 or 2,000 pounds. The main object in breeding draft-horses is to supply the market and the demand at present is for a large horse.

Mr. Phelps: I beg leave to differ with the gentleman who has just spoken. I think the draft horse is a special purpose horse. The draft horse may be a source of profit to some farmers to raise them and sell, but I have failed to find a single man that will say, in my neighborhood at least, that the draft horse has been a profitable horse for him to keep to work on the farm. They fail us just when we most need them. Our first experience was some fifteen years ago. We had a good team of road horses, well bred. We purchased a new reaper that year and had a good deal of grain of our own to cut, and about 100 acres of wheat for our neighbor. Not very many had reapers at that time, and so we aimed to cut the crops of more than our own. During harvest time, we found that these horses were not equal to the emergency. After the second day's cutting, we noticed they began to sweat and to give out. had to take a lighter team to finish our cutting.

The result was that we

We tried those horses

at other times. They gave out every time. I noticed that whenever the ground became soft these horses gave out. I live near Westerville, in this county, and one day I inquired of a man who lives over near Urbana his experience in regard to the use of draft horses upon the farm, and found that it coincided with mine. We found that they were a failure as a farm horse. It seems that they can't get their feet out of the mud in time, and it seems to worry and worst them. They can work well enough when the ground is solid, but I will take the well bred trotter, and when he is young, I will do more work on the farm with a team of that kind, than you can possibly do with draft horses, and I have tried and tested it.