Kansas Farmer from Topeka, Kansas • Page 5

1 KANSAS FARMER 11, ii3 FUTURE OF DRAFT HORSE 3y COL. F. M. WOODS, Lincoln, Neb. YOU ask me wli.it I think about tlio future of draft horses, and whether it will he profitable to produce thein and what the demand will probably bo.

My answer is that just as long as power is needed for anything on the farm and in the streets, tho'inajor part of that power will be furnished by the horse. 15tit, says one, have you forgotten about the trucks, gang plows and other gasoline inventions that are coming into use so rapidly? Why, sir, had which does the work of from 5 to 50 men, and yet it is harder to get help and good men command twice to three times the pay they did before their introduction. At the time 1 speak of Uncle Sam's family consisted of about 15,000,000 mouths 'to feed. His family has now increased to 100,000,000 and is growing more rapidly than ever. Our export trade then was practically nothing.

This year it is four billions, the largest in history. At that time our manufactures amounted to but a trille, but last year we manufactured more dollars worth than Fngland, France and Germany combined, with one hundred millions' to spare. All these artisans must be fed. It. takes power to till the land and raise the food fast enough to keep up the supply, and all the horses men can raise and all the trucks the rich can afford to use will be taxed to the limit to meet the demands made by the men who till the soil.

Scientific tests at experiment station tell us what different animals are worth annually to restore fertility to the soil. This is here the urine as well as id her droppings are well utilized. The horse heads the list, with $24 per annum, tho cow next with $12, and then down. So 25 horses, if you were saving the fertilizer as they do in Belgium, are worth $025 per year to restore feed value to your soil. Mr.

Farmer, ft re you saving or wasting this by-product? You can't feed your stock unless you feed your land, and the cheapest way to feed land is through stock. In closing, let me say, pin your faith to good horses and to good stock id' all kinds. Try to do no more than you can do well. Try to keep no more stock than you can keep well. Remembering that a pair of mares that are bred well enough and made well enough can do as much work as two pairs of common horses, and besides raise a valuable pair of colts, if bred to good stallions.

They cost no more to keep than the poor things so many are using now. And remember, too, that a good stallion will breed al! your own mares and earn enough to pay for two or three hired men. and that without moving away rom your barn. I wish I could live as long as I think horses can be produced at a profit. I would be as old as the old nigger's aunt.

He said he had an aunt down in Memphis that was 117 years old. They asked him what she was doing down there. "Oh," he said, "she ain't doin' nothin' just livin' down there with her wholesale house in Lincoln, tell me their trucks cost them about twice as much as horses to do the same amount of work, but, said they, our competitors have them and so we must. There are certain orders that must be delivered iiiekly. "Wliy." said Mr.

doe Grainger, "what do you suppose it costs per month to operate that truck?" pointing to a big $4,500 machine. "Two hundred and fifty dollars per month won't any more than pay for oil, repairs, driver and other expenses. It is something all the time. There is no common business able to support them. Then ours are new, and I don't know what they will cost after they have been run two or three years." They only keep two trucks, and from 10 to 15 teams.

You can get all of this kind of evidence as to comparative cost of horses versus trucks you want by a little inquiry, am glad trucks came just as they did. Farmers will now breed a higher class of horses; that is. more high class horses. It takes more than twice the power to properly farm land that it did 10 to 20 years ago. Farmers have discovered those who have been farming their lands with one or two teams that twice the work put on the same crop nearly and often (piite double the yield.

On' the farm nothing pays better than the thorough cultivation of the soil. Thorough plowing, disking and dragging until the soil is like an ash heap, then rolling until the ground is well packed, that's all there is to dry farming, and that system, if you keep your land rich, almost makes farming a sure business. That system solves 50 per cent of the droulh problem in the west. I have noticed that good land fat land, as the Dutchman calls it well tilled, seldom disappoints its owner. Wo are farming better than we used to.

but such men as Henry Wallace says that two-thirds of the farms in the corn belt could add from one-third to one-half to their yields by intense cultivation. That means more power, and that, means more horses, but we have got to raise them first. The country is practically drained of them now. For 50 years to come, two-thirds of all the power will be horse-power. I saw the first self -rakes and first self-binders when they came to tho farms.

Men said they were a fine thing, but a death blow to labor. Since then thousands of machines have been invented and put to work, each one of selected mares produce possibly 00 per cent of colts. If he has 100 mares, if lie saves 05 per cent, he is above tho average of men using that number. II. M.

McMillen says 50 per cent of the colts where a man is using 100 mares is all the average breeder will produce. It seems strange, but a man on the ranch With from 2.000 to mares will get a much larger per cent of colts than the most careful man on the farm. On the range the mare roams at will and nature is the director. A few days ago I made a sale for a man in Pennsylvania who has been in the range horse business for a good many years. He had 75.000 acres in northwest South Dakota.

Had at one time as high as 7.000 horses. Often bred 3.000 mares, and raised as high as colts per year, but he says the homesteaders broke his business. lie used none but good registered I'ercheron stallions and had worked up to producing a high class horse. jle was only one of many, but today that supply is almost entirely cut oil'. No more range competition to mention.

The supply of horse'', must come from the farms, and it wi'l be impossible to ever overdo tho business. Farm emigrants from this country to Canada have taken our horses over there by tho hundred thousand, and yet six months ago I made a horse sale at Regina. and made one of the highest draft horse averages made this year in Canada or the I'nited States. 1 found a good farm team weighing 1.500. legal tender at $S00 per span, and yet they use more gasoline power on the farms in Canada than any part of the United Slates that I know of.

If trucks had not come into use, we would have had to go back to oxen for farm power. I hear that one express company is using 500 trucks, not because they are cheaper (for they arc not), but horses could not be had of the class they wanted, no matter what juices they were willing to pay. Truck power is much more expensive than horse power. A good truck that takes the place of teams weighing 3.000 to .1.800 costs from $4,000 to $5,000. about the same as four or five good teams.

The life of the truck is only a few years, with good care, and the average man employed to run them puts them on the bum in a short, time. The fact is they are simply a luxury and are used by certain classes of business men simply because their competitors use them. Grainger Brothers, the largest Win dim ft m- iiiiWn jtii'ti-WW Wrtfr Mi a Artt'wtal V. M. WOODS.

LINCOLN, WU) HAS l-JTI'Y YLAT1S LLINO Fl.Vi: AKl'ION it. not been for those invent lens that eanie just in the nick of time to the assistance of the horse, the juices that good draft horses would now command would be prohibitive. A good farm team, such as the farmer ought to have to do effective work, costs from $450 to $S00, according to the way they are bred and developed. That's a high price for the average farmer to have to pay for power. Express horses of the high type used in cities by the large wholesale houses cost iioui $7H(l to $1,000.

and good ones even now are hard to get. It takes time and expense to produce a good five-year-old draft horse. "They be madewhile you wait." A man on the farm with to 15 marcs can by good management and by the use of none but PIONEERING IN 1854 seven years later than the raising of the log house in the picture. No sign of human habitation other than the smoke from this cabin chimney or perhaps an Indian wigwam could be seen for months after the arrival of the family from Westport. But the founder of the new home came rich in frontier experience and knew how to prepare for emergencies.

Prior to selecting the homestead, he had known the privations of the frontiersman. He first entered Kansas Territory in 18,10 and soon after became a freighter to the Indian agencies and government stations. For years he had admired the beautiful prairies, witnessed the marvelous evidences of fertility, studied the changeableness of (spans the Wakarusa River on this farm, on the state road leading from Topeka to Quenemo, one of the first bridges of this permanent type of architecture ever erected in the state. The state road which was laid out through the "Berry farm" was established by an act of the legislature in The petition asking for this road was presented by O. W.

Berry, and he. too. was largely influential in securing the public appropriations for building the Wakarusa arch bridge which has stood so long and with the appearance of remaining to future generations as a monument to the sturdy citizenship of the fathers of the township. 'ast changes have appeared in the territory that was made into a state the seasons, and noted the varied natural resources of Kansas. Born and reared in the bluograss state of Kentucky, famed for its fine herds, he naturally chose stock raising, ami from his first beginning in Kansas has put his faith in stock farming.

Throughout all the years of good and bad seasons he combined farming and stock raising and was known as a singularly successful farmer. For the memorable dry year of 1800 he had left over from previous good crops sufficient corn, and notwithstanding the terrible drouth, succeeded in saving enough hay and fodder to tide over the worst period in the history of the state. In 1874, when the grasshoppers came, he had cribs of corn on hand saved from the bountiful crops of preceding years. Some of that corn was loaned to the less fortunate, with the privilege of repaying, bushel for bushed, from the next crop raised, a manifestation of the spirit of liberality known perhaps only among the earlv settlers of the West. G.

W. Berry who necessarily enters largely into this sketch, was known as a very thorough and up-to-date farmer. He was one of the first to introduce the tame grasses into Kansas and made a success of growing clover and timothy from his first attempt on a Kansas farm, lie was widely known as a breeder of horses, cattle and hogs. He paid especial attention to breeding fine horses, and in this connection took an active part in the early county and state fairs, lie was one of the first to introduce Berkshire hogs into the state. The stock of Berkshires originated on the Berry farms have gone out to every part of the country where hogs are raised, and have added fame to Kansas-bred herds.

He took an active part in the organization of public schools and assisted in building a number of country churches. He was one of the early subscribers to Kansas Farmer, in fact, his family can not remember when the paper first entered his house. THE log house shown in the picture was built in the fall of 1S54 by the late G. W. Berry, one of early settlers of Kansas.

This house which stands on the "P.erry farm." near the banks of the historic Wakarusa River, on the old Sac and Fox state road, twelve miles south of Topoka, is one of the oldest houses remaining in Shawnee County. The builder of this early Kansas home belonged to a class of pioneers nearly all of whom have passed away. He staked his claim to the land on which the house stands, and hud the foundation on the first day of September, 1854, or about three months before Topeka was settled. Later in the fall he moved his family from Westport, and lived in this house until 1808, when he removed to the farm four miles north of the site of Berryton, where he died in March. The old log cabin with its big stone chimney, clapboard roof and quaint old-fashioned windows, was erected in a grove of saplings which have matured during the more than half a century into stately oaks.

A feature of the interior is the great fire place adding cheer to the living room and without which the cabin of the settler would be incomplete. Many points of interest are associated with the place known for nearly sixty years as the "Rcrry farm," or the "Wash-ington Berry farm," as called by old settlers. The Wakarusa, which runs through the place, is one of the finest fishing streams in the country, and lias always been a favorite resort lor fishing, hunting and camping jmrties. Ine fine body of timber that originally stood Dn the farm was a famous stopping place for Indians who made this a crossing point on their visits between occupied by the tribes living jpposite directions, and whose roving habits brought them this way or moie than fifteen years after the white set-c nent. Perf.aps the best known land-nark in this part of the country is tho splendid three-arch stone bridge that I 1 5 4 1 i O.NE 01' SUAWXKE t'Ot'MV'S OLWiSI U0iJ.ES U.0H.K OF XUJi LAXJi G.

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