The Horse in America

The Horse in America - A practical treatise on the various types common in the United States, with something of their history and varying characteristics

There have been so many books written about horses that in offering a new one I feel that an explanation, if not an apology, is due. And I am embarrassed as to how to frame the explanation without seeming to reflect on the books previously given to the public. Nothing could be further from my desire. Most of these previous books have been devoted to special kinds or types of horses without any effort to cover a very broad field. Some others have been frankly partizan with the avowed purpose of proving that this type or that was the only one that was worth serious consideration. All these are interesting, but valuable chiefly to the careful student bent on going into the subject of horse breeding and horse training in all of its branches. To do this an ordinary reader would have to study half a hundred books with ivthe danger of becoming confused in the multiplicity of theories and conflicting statements and with the final result of knowing as little in the end as in the beginning. In this modest little volume I have endeavored briefly to show how the horses in America have been developed and have come to be what they are to-day. If I have succeeded even partly in my purpose I will have my ample reward; if I fail, my book will end on a few dusty library shelves along with hundreds of others on kindred subjects. There is a peculiar characteristic of most writers on the horse. Let a man be ever so fair in his ordinary business and social life, he is apt, when he becomes interested in horses, to throw away his judicial attitude and change into an advocate who sees only one side. When his interest in that one side carries him to the length of writing, the tendency is to be so partizan that he is even discourteous to others who do not agree with him. This queer disposition to wrangle and dispute is due, no doubt, to the fact that horse breeding is not yet by any means an exact science, and the data, guiding even those who exercise the greatest vcare and intelligence, is not trustworthy. We do not know with certainty how any of the great types has been produced, for the beginnings of all of them are covered up by fictions, based on traditions not recorded, but handed down from generation to generation, or on fictions that have been manufactured with ingenious mendacity. All this is a pity, but there is no help for it now. What we can do is to tell what is true, show what has been demonstrated by known achievements and go on working in the material that we have at hand, so that we may assist in increasing the great property value that this country has in its horses. That property value is immense. In the beginning of 1905, the Agricultural Department estimated that the (taxable) value of the horses in the United States was $1,200,310,020, and of mules $251,840,378, or a total of $1,452,150,398. This is only about eight per cent less than the aggregate value of the cows, beef cattle, sheep and hogs in the whole country. Merely, therefore, from an economic standpoint this question of preserving and increasing the value of horses is one of prime importance. At this particular time viit is a question not only of increasing, but even of preserving, this value, for new agencies are coming into competition with horses for many purposes and are being substituted for horses in many others. The automobiles and the electric tramways are not merely passing fads. They have come to stay until substituted by something else which has not yet swum into our ken. The common horses will soon be obsolete except on our farms, and even on the farms they ought to be given up, for, notwithstanding all the great breeding establishments in the various states, by far the greater number of the horses are bred on the farms at present. That should always be the case; but it may not be so when the time comes that is rapidly approaching and a common horse will have next to no value at all. Farmers more than others need to realize that only such horses should be bred that will have a value for other than strictly farm work, for a farmer should be able to sell his surplus stock with a fair profit. If farmers have not the foresight to anticipate the inevitable, then they will have to accept the loss that will surely ensue. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 54716
Author: Speed, John Gilmer
Release Date: May 13, 2017
Format: eBook
Language: English