I am persuaded that no objection to the remedy as I have stated it, would or could properly be made except by those whose animals were not included in the first prize or sweepstakes winners, and the only objection I have ever heard to the adoption of the rule, even at the fairs, is based on the idea that those animals (or the owners) failing to take prizes in the rings for ages, should have a "new trial" before an entirely new jury in sweepstakes. But how about those who won the verdict in the first trial! Is there any justice in requiring them to submit to another trial between themselves and those they have once vanquished? and if there is any propriety in that, why not in still another new trial and more new trials before new juries until every animal in the show has received a first prize, or the treasury has been exhausted or the community fails to furnish any more jurymen?
If it were simply the "consolation stakes" to non-prize winners, some loose practice might seem justifiable, but it is not the best policy in conducting the competitions of the Fat Stock Show to be influenced by any considerations except those which relate to fair, impartial and intelligent decisions, and no decisions can be fair, impartial and intelligent which conflict with each other and which, as a whole, fail to form a consistent record.
John P. Reynolds,
Supt. Class A.
James F. Scott purchased 200 mares and 500 one and two year old colts to be delivered on the 15th of March at the San Antonio Viego ranch.
Raising Young Mules.
Where land is not too high, and pasturage good as well as cheap, keeping good mares from which young mules can be raised is certainly a profitable business; especially so where corn and hay are grown on the farm, and the mares can be profitably worked at least part of the year.
With a liberal supply of corn fodder for winter feeding, and a good pasture, with hay and corn during the coldest weather, and when at work, this branch of farming is not only easy, but certain and profitable. A mare in good condition, not counting pasturage, can be kept for eight dollars a year. Service of jack here is generally six dollars, making keeping of mare and service cost fourteen. There has been no time since I came to this part of the State when a mule colt would not bring all the way from twenty-five to fifty dollars, depending, of course, upon the size, form, and general condition at weaning time. Allowing nothing for the work the mare would be able to do, which certainly ought to be sufficient to pay for her keep, there is left a good margin for profit. Or if we count the interest on the money invested in the mare, still we have a good profit left. The difference paid for young mules shows two facts: first, the importance of a good sire, or jack, and the other of a well-formed mare. It certainly costs no more money to keep a well-formed animal than it does to keep a poor one. Of course, at the start, one may require a somewhat larger outlay of money, and in this way, if we count the interest on the money invested, cause young mules to cost a trifle more than if cheaper animals were used. But this is more than compensated for by the larger price the colt will bring.
The difference between a mare that will bring a mule that only sells for the lowest price here at weaning time, twenty-five dollars, and one that brings a mule that will sell for fifty, the highest generally obtained, would make quite an item in the amount of profit to be derived from her keep, and especially where the same animals are kept quite a number of years for this purpose, as is often the case.