cheap and good grass lands, with abundance of pure water, and with all
temperatures of climate, we can grow, as a people, the best horses in
the world, to be known as the National Horse of America. Our
government must have a blood standard for the breeding of horses, by
which our horses can be bred and raised true to a type, able to
reproduce itself in any country to which we may export them; and the
types can be several, as our territory is so great and demands so
varied, but blood and breeding must be the standard for each type. Our
fancy breeders have a standard now, called a "time standard," which is
purely a gambling standard, demoralizing in all its tendencies to both
man and beast. With this the government need have nothing to do, for
it will die out of itself as the masses learn more of it, and
especially would it cease to be, once the government established a
_blood_ standard for the breeding of all horses, and particularly a
National Horse.

When the cereal crops of our country are light, or the prices fall
below profitable production, the farmer has always a colt or two to
sell, thus helping him through the year. In place of constantly
importing horses from France, England, and Scotland, where they are
raised mostly in paddocks, and paying out annually millions of
dollars, it is our duty to be exporting.

As an American I am ashamed when I see paraded at our county or state
fairs stallions and mares wearing the "blue ribbon" of superexcellence,
with boastful exclamation by the owner of "a thoroughbred imported
Percheron, or a thoroughbred imported French coacher, or a
thoroughbred imported Scotch Clyde, or a thoroughbred imported English
coacher, or a thoroughbred imported English Shire, or a thoroughbred
imported English Cleveland Bay!"