REESE LIBRARY

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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THE THEOKY AND PRACTICE

CATTLE-BREEDING.

WILLIAM T^ARFIELD,

Author of a " History of Imported Short-horns " ; and a Staff
Correspondent of "The Breeder's Gazette."

CHICAGO:

J. H. SANDERS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1890.

() 3 s"

COPYRIGHT, 1889,
BY J. H. SANDEKS PUBLISHING CO.

[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]

TO THE

CATTLE-BREEDERS OF AMERICA

THIS LITTLE BOOK 13 DEDICATED

as a slight expression of appreciation of many
kindly words and deeds.

PREFACE.

T N this little book I have endeavored to gather
together such parts of my contributions to
the periodical press for a number of years past
as seemed to be of sufficient value for the prac-
tical breeder to justify a more permanent form.
If an earnest effort to do something for my
fellow-laborers in the great domain of cattle-
breeding needs any justification, I may, perhaps,
find it in the kind reception which my occa-
sional writings have met with from the cattle-
breeders of the country. I am grateful to them
for many years of friendly appreciation, and I
offer this digest of my work in the hope that it
may prove of some value to them and to those
who shall succeed them.

I wish to take this opportunity to acknowl-
edge the assistance my sons have given me in
preparing all my work for the press. Without
their aid much — even most — of it could never

have been done. Much of the work of prepar-
es)

6 PREFACE.

ing this book for the press has been done by
my younger son, Ethelbert D. Warfield of Mi-
ami University. Great credit is also due to my
elder son, Prof. Benjamin B. Warfield, D. D.,
now of Princeton, N. J., whose energy and
vigor of thought and pen gave me such essen-
tial aid in the earlier years of my connection
with the press; nor has the pursuit of the more
weighty things of theology destroyed his capac-
ity for taking an occasional part in the active
discussion of cattle matters. The papers which
have appeared over my signature have thus to
quite a large degree been of family origin; and,
as the time must come when I shall pass on
both the work of writing and breeding to them,
I am glad of an opportunity to make this ac-
knowledgment of their filial aid.

WILLIAM WARFIELD.

GRASMEKE, near Lexington, Ky.,
May, 1889.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PART I. — THE THEORY.

Cattle-Breeding a Science and an Art 11-22

Heredity— The Breeder's Corner- Stone .' 23-38

Atavism, or Reversion 39-47

Prepotency 48-60

Variation ..< 61-77

PART II. — THE THEORY APPLIED.

Application of Theory to Practice 81-84

Inbreeding 85-105

Line Breeding 106-119

Natural Breeding 120*142

Historical Testimony on Breeding Methods 143-186

Cross Breeding 187-201

Grade Breeding 202-214

Pedigree 215-235

PART III. — THE PRACTICE.

Introduction to the Practice of Breeding Methods 239-245

Selection of Breeding Animals 246-271

Selection of Breeding Animals — Continued 272-297

Shelter 298-312

General Care of Cattle 313-369

Feeding Methods 370-386

(7)

PART L-THE THEORY.

CATTLE-BREEDING A SCIENCE AND
AN ART.

REFLECTIVE men have in all ages acknowl-
edged the charm of agricultural pursuits, and,
above all, of those which are especially con-
cerned with the breeding of domesticated
animals. They draw man's mind away from
the daily vexations and cares of life to a con-
templation of the course of Nature and those
laws which God ordained in creation for the
ordering and governing of the world. The
cultivation of the soil and the raising of the
annual crops which each season yield after their
own kind teaches a dependence upon the higher
power which controls the seasons and sends the
sunshine and the rains of heaven in due pro-
portion. To those who follow the avocations
of this branch of agriculture there is little room
for any other action than a close observation of
natural laws and a wise and strict conformity
to them. But in the breeding of live stock, of
what kind soever it may be, while the observa-
tion of the course of Nature is no less important,
there is, furthermore, place for the exercise of
much higher faculties.

(ii)

12 CATTLE-BREEDING.

The stock-breeder has something more to do
than merely to effect the coupling of one ani-
mal with another. To rightly fulfill the func-
tion of his calling he must so mate animal with
animal as to produce the best possible results,
generation by generation, in an ever-ascending
proportion. To him are entrusted living organ-
isms from which he is to produce, according to
the natural laws of propagation, other similar
organisms, and of such a character as shall
conserve every good quality and as far as pos-
sible replace every bad quality with a good, or
at least a better. These organisms are there-
fore plastic. The secret of their plasticity is
not known to every one, and to those to whom
it is known it is still a mystery, or at best a
half -read riddle. In just the ratio of the insight
that this man or that has into this secret of
Nature will he become a successful breeder.
This insight, in fine, is knowledge, and like
all other knowledge it is power, and he that
would possess it must seek for it as for hid
treasure.

There may have been a time when men were
ignorant of the value of this branch of knowl-
edge; but if so it was beyond the first faint
dawn of human history. The earliest written
records of the race show that certain breeds of
horses were already specially esteemed, and that
the dog had been greatly specialized to meet

A SCIENCE AND AN ART. 18

the requirements of man in the pursuit of game
and his other vocations. The pyramids of
Egypt not only reveal at least three distinct
types of the dog, of widely varying character,
but they indicate that even in the hoary an-
tiquity from which they speak cattle were
esteemed for certain well-defined peculiarities,
and it is scarcely an overbold corollary from
this fact that the cattle were bred with a view
to the special production of certain highly-
esteemed marks. Thus we see how early man
began to adapt the beasts about him to his
uses, not merely by taming them but by breed-
ing with a view to more and more perfect
adaptation to his needs.

The early experiments were doubtless crude
in the extreme, and yet it can scarcely be
doubted that they were suggested by the ap-
pearance of that tendency to variation which,
as will be seen in the course of this inquiry,
has been such a potent factor in the whole his-
tory of improvement and specialization. These
steps, therefore, feeble and tentative as they
were, proceeded on firm ground and indicated
a steady advance. It can hardly be doubted,
however, that all such progress was in the
main individual and in a great degree dictated
by chance, or at most by an unorganized though
rational seizure upon a windfall of fortune.
The advance through many centuries was, there-

14 CATTLE-BREEDING.

fore, except in a few instances, extremely slow
and variable. Hence it is that we find al-
though the classic writers of Greece and Rome
reveal again and again the existence of im-
proved breeds of various kinds of domestic
animals, with few exceptions those animals
existed at the beginning of the eighteenth
century throughout Europe in a state which
showed little or no advance over the breeds
described by Pliny and Columella. Not that
there was not then as now great variety in the
breeds cultivated in different countries. Then
a long-horned, ill-favored breed roamed the fair
but infertile plains of Italy, while the low coun-
tries, that are the Holland and Belgium of to-
day, possessed a breed that was the natural com-
plement of their frugal and thrifty, if homely
life. The hills of Wales then, as now, were
occupied by a diminutive stock, while the rich
uplands and luxuriant meadow lands of "Merrie
England" raised, even then, cattle from which
the feeder reared beeves whose carcasses were
eaten with gusto in hall and tavern. But in
every land it was the native stock, improved,
if improved at all, only by the unconscious
moulding of the national wants and needs.
The Dutch loved cheese, the English beef, and
the result was worked out in broad but in as
yet indefinite lines in the cattle of the two
countries.

A SCIENCE AND AN ART. 15

But the eighteenth century witnessed a great
awakening of interest in all agricultural affairs,
and toward the last quarter of the century the
neat cattle became a center of this interest.
This was particularly so in England. And it is
at this time that the general progress comes to
have the first hero of its work. Prior to this
time the improvers who added here a little and
there a IrVfcle to the quality of the stock they
bred were never known, or if known were
quickly forgotten. Robert Bakewell is the first
name on the roll of the great improvers of
English cattle. Besides other animals he gave
great time and attention to the breeding and
improving of the Long-horned breed. From
his experiments sprang a long series of efforts
for the improvement of English cattle. This
movement was nearly synchronous with the
general movement which brought all the appli-
ances of science and the results of knowledge
in every sphere into the work of increasing the
productiveness of agricultural labors. Bake-
well devoted himself to the study of breeding
principles in a systematic and thorough-going
way. He had little to build on. Natural
science as we know it was almost undeveloped.
He was a pioneer, and he did his work thor-
oughly and accumulated a mass of material in
the results of many experiments which was
the great foundation storm of Jater work.

16 CATTLE-BREEDING.

It is not my purpose to even briefly sketch
here the progressive steps by which the work
begun by Bakewell grew into the fabric which
we possess. Let it suffice to say that what he
began others — both scientists and breeders —
pushed on with well-directed labors, each add-
ing his mite to the general sum of knowledge.
My purpose is rather to point out that, while
prior to the appearance of Bakewell tnere was
little known in regard to cattle-breeding and
little attention given to it, since his time it
has risen so rapidly that it is perhaps not
claiming too much to assert that there are both
a science and an art of breeding.

Science is primarily knowledge, and second-
arily it is knowledge systematized and arranged.
For more than a hundred years acute observers
have been gathering facts and studying the
phenomena of animal reproduction. During
this time an immense number of facts have
been collected, collated and arranged with refer-
ence to the elucidation of the many problems
affecting the transmission of life. Out of these
investigations have grown many special studies
of particular departments of the great general
subject. Studies of the laws of heredity, of
natural selection, and many other specific prob-
lems have won years of devoted labor from
many active scholars. What the scientist has
approached from the side of theory the practi-

A SCIENCE AND AN ART. 17

cal breeder has assailed on the side of practical
every-day utility. The studies of the one have
borne their due fruit in the application of their
results to the labor of the other, and the end is
seen in the steady improvement of so many
breeds of cattle.

It does not prove that there is no such thing
as a science of breeding to show that the ordi-
nary course of breeding cattle is controlled by
no law or system of laws, that it is the result of
no special knowledge, but is simply an unregu-
lated and unordered progression. It is perhaps
too true that the practice of a great many
breeders , is reducible to no system, and that
Hap-hazard is the presiding tutelary God of
their farms. But this does not prove anything
against the existence of a science of breeding.
It merely shows that if there is such a science
it needs to be more widely taught.

It would perhaps be claiming too much to
assert that this science is an exact science or a
thoroughly systematized one. But there are
few of which this can be said, and they are not
those from which man derives the highest
truth. In this life we must be content "to
know in part." Perfect and absolute knowl-
edge is not the prerogative of mortal beings.
This science of breeding, then, is the systema-
tized facts and the laws deduced from them
whereby we are to be regulated in our practical

18

CATTLE-BREEDING.

work of breeding. It is, in short, the theory of
breeding, and under that term I shall attempt
so much of an account of it as seems to me
useful to the practical breeder in his ordinary
course of breeding.

Science is "knowledge systematized and ar-
ranged." A science is knowledge in some one
department so systematized and arranged. So
an art is defined by a high authority as the
"application of knowledge or power to practi-
cal purposes." Thus we see that the art of
breeding stands in the same relation to the
practical side of the calling as the science does
to the theory. If we have a science of breeding
and breeders lay hold of the knowledge thus
obtained and apply it to the daily problems
which they meet, they may fairly claim for
their work the dignity of an art. One of the
useful arts it most truly is. Knowledge is
power; knowledge or power, they are two dif-
ferent terms for the same idea, applied to prac-
tical purposes; applied to the breeding and de-
veloping of a breed of cattle — this, then, is the
art of cattle-breeding.

I have said that the nature of animals con-
sidered in a wide view was plastic. This sug-
gests a comparison with what are in common
speech known as the plastic arts. Think of
the potter moulding his vessels of clay; in the
highest department of his art he has before his

A SCIENCE AND AN ART. 19

mind an ideal, and he works it out upon the
clay in some beautiful shape and adorns it with
some elegant design. If he be a true artist he
will work long and faithfully, making many
designs of exquisite loveliness, and yet never
satisfying in a single instance the ideal in his
brain. The world may applaud, he may him-
self feel conscious that he has done good work,
true work, but never the highest and best that
he had aimed to do. And yet how ductile the
clay! How easily moulded to any shape by
the cunning fingers under the direction of the
eager brain! How receptive the blank surface
of the finished vessel and how bright the colors
ready prepared for its adornment! But he who
breeds cattle has to do with living organisms;
plastic, indeed; yielding strange and wonderful
changes under the hands of some cunning arti-
ficer, now and again, whose masterwork is at
once the admiration and despair of many con-
temporaries and successors. But even in his
hands a thing so highly strung that the tense
cord, if I may use a figure from another sphere,
seems ready to snap even while it yields the
purest strains. Many, even most breeders, seem
never to learn how to breed the animal nature
to their will. But there is no question that it
can be moulded even as the potter's clay. Not
so easily — only with infinite knowledge and
skill. But the very nicety of the work, the

20 CATTLE-BREEDING.

very difficulty of the task, lifts the artist and
his art at once to the highest plane. He who
moulds the counterfeit of life may, indeed, be
the artist of no mean art; but surely thrice
greater he who with no less skill manipulates
the complex nature of a living being, producing
a superior form and one in conformity with
the ideal in his mind. Such a view is far from
exaggerated. The world is full of countless
varieties of a single species of domesticated
animals which are only modifications wrought
out by man's ingenuity. The various breeds of
cattle, horses, sheep, dogs, fowls, pigeons, and
many other animals, not to speak of the infinite
beauty and variety of the variations produced
in the vegetable kingdom by the magic of man's
skill, attest the marvelous extent to which man
has moulded and is still moulding the domesti-
cated animals.

The breeding of cattle is, then, if rightly fol-
lowed, a true art. It may sink very low. The
artist may be only a caricaturist. But if the
knowledge and the power which are free to
every man who chooses to make them his are
properly applied the breeder will not be un-
worthy of the name.

The fine arts then are not all the arts. And
even in the fine arts the final execution of some
masterpiece is not all the art. The paints
must be mixed, the canvas prepared, and many

A SCIENCE AND AN ART. 21

minute and often laborious and always prosaic
things be done by the painter ere the first
outline is traced upon the final canvas. The
sculptor must seek his clay often at great trou-
ble, must mould and model and toil at many a
little and irksome task before he can think of
the marble. There are no less many prosaic
things in our breeding of cattle, and I shall
write of many details that are important, if
scarcely counted in the final sum. The cattle-
breeder needs no one to tell him how many
little trials he meets day by day, how many
sore disappointments, how many things that
make him think that he lives for the day and
not for any high and noble end. What I have
written here I have written largely with a view
to call off the mind from this one view of the
subject. It is a great help to rise above the
little and narrow view and see the world from
an entirely new and wider standpoint. How dif-
ferent the impression created upon the mind by
a single landscape viewed from the level of the
plain and again from some lofty mountain top!
And so it is here. Not that I would have the
plain, straightforward business aspect ignored.
Wherever business relations enter the field
they are honorable and of the highest impor-
tance. They are, however, not likely to be
overlooked; they are too aggressive and thrust
themselves too much on our attention. We are

22 CATTLE-BREEDING.

too little given to remembering that there are
any other considerations except such as are
closely reckoned in dollars and cents. I should
prefer to regard the monetary return only as
a fair and just standard whereby to gauge the
judgment of the world on our work; and as we
are prone to be very partial judges of our own
work such a standard is not unlikely to measure
in no inaccurate way our success in turning out
art products. The world may, indeed, be de-
luded for a time into giving more for a poor
beast than a fine one, just as it was into rank-
ing Guicjo Reni with Raphael, and into giving
$17,000 for the "peach-blow vase," but such ab-
erations are rarely of long duration and will
in good time right themselves.
• And so in the following pages I propose to
treat of the theory and practice of breeding in
a plain and unambitious way, but I shall con-
sider at the same time that I am treating of
the science and the art of breeding; and while
my aim is to prepare a manual for the farmer
and breeder in his ordinary course of breeding
and handling cattle I shall endeavor to pre-
sent the subject in such a way as to show the
scope and unity of it in its higher relations.

HEREDITY— THE BREEDER'S CORNER-
STONE.

THE great fundamental proposition in all
questions of breeding is that "like produces
like." On this basis, whether formulated in
words or not, men have built from time imme-
morial. This fact forces itself on the human
mind, must have forced itself on the mind of
our first ancestors, as the normal condition of
natural production. Every animal under ordi-
nary conditions brings forth "after its own
kind." This law runs through all Nature. "Do
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of this-
tles?" asked the Lord of his disciples, recogniz-
ing this law in the vegetable kingdom!

Had there never been any reason to believe
that this great general law had some excep-
tions to its universal application it would prob-
ably have never been given any particular at-
tention, and would have been passed over as
too obvious to deserve more than a passing as-
sertion unsupported by proofs and unillustrated
by examples. It has become important, how-
ever, since the enunciation and development of
the theory of variation, to bring out the normal

(23)

24 CATTLE-BREEDING.

action of this law, and to illustrate its scope
and its general prevalence, in order to preserve
due proportion in the explanation of the influ-
ences that are to be considered in breeding
cattle.

{l Man must have recognized in the earliest
times the law that 'like produces like" as ap-
plied to man. The least observing mind would
early have this truth forced upon it. How well
fixed this was in the very earliest time of
which we have any account is illustrated in all
early records by the observed line of demarka-
tion which personal appearance drew between
different races. This was of course based on
the knowledge that from Greek parents could
spring only one having the Greek type of form
and feature; and so also of Egyptian, Hebrew,
Ethiopian, Accadian, etc.^ Nor are the earliest
literatures wanting in clear and distinct recog-
nition not merely of this law as applied to the
wide field of racial resemblances, but it is noted
with respect to tribal, family, even personal
resemblances. In these cases the law appears
as a recognized fact — first as merely existing—
it is not long till its power comes to be recog-
nized as a means to an end. Men began to se-

*In the monuments of Egypt, for example, it is easy to trace the race
types assigned to different dynasties even, the Hyksos or Shepherd kings
being especially unlike native dynasties; and the Egyptian type is strongly
distinguished from others, such as the Assyrian, Hittite, etc.; so also in
the Assyrian and other monuments.

THE BREEDER'S CORNER-STONE. 25

lect animals of like character and breed, then,
with a view to preserve the type. Thus the
Arabs, when scarcely more than half- wild sav-
ages, kept records of their horses' pedigrees and
valued them scarcely less than such pedigrees,^
are valued today. In the days of the Koma'n
Empire so fully had this law come into general
recognition that for the sport of the luxury-
degraded people who had once by sturdy man-
hood achieved the mastery of the world all
kinds of monstrous forms were cultivated and
bred, showing that the world had already
learned how broad the law was; that not only
were normal characteristics reproduced but
that abnormal features were also propagated;
and that the rule was not merely general but
that it extended to the reproduction in the
offspring of many of the most trivial personal
peculiarities.

A few particular examples may perhaps best
make clear the great breadth and at the same
time the minute influence upon detail which
the power embodied in this law has. I shall
begin with the more general and proceed to the
more special cases.

Perhaps the most general type 'of Cases are
those of race peculiarities. The large-framed
blonde type of the Teutonic peoples, the smaller
dark-hued type of the Italian and other South-
ern races, the yellow of the Mongolian, the

26 CATTLE-BREEDING.

dusky, curly-haired type of the negro races;
these all produce generation by generation the
same type so long as kept pure; but when the
blood of one intermingles with another an in-
stant change to an intermediate type ensues.

Then we have well recorded instances of
close resemblances in families for many gener-
ations. Thus the ill-fated house of Stuart was
marked by a family resemblance of the most
striking kind, one which the portraits of its
members, even under the utmost efforts of
court painters to "individualize" their "sub-
jects," makes startlingly clear to us. In the
families of Yalois and Bourbon, too, ran a
line of strong resemblances. Indeed, not only
among ruling families, but wherever a long
line of portraits have preserved to us a record
of the personal appearance of a number of
generations we find that in a large majority of
cases there is a strong resemblance.

But this influence is not confined to mere
externals; it goes to the deepest things of the
mind and character. If the Stuarts were alike
in form and feature how much more in that
headstrong, incapable nature that could learn
neither from precept nor experience! How
plain bluff Hal shines out in good Queen Bess
despite the powder and the patches with which
so many generations have sought to hide the
too palpable likeness.

THE BREEDER'S CORNER-STONE. 27

And so Darwin quotes (" Animals and Plants
Under Domestication/' Vol. II, p. 25,) from an
earlier writer the case of a man who was in the
habit of sleeping on his back "with his right
leg crossed over the left, and whose daughter,
while an infant in the cradle, followed exactly
the same habit, though an attempt was made
to cure her." What may be considered an ex-
actly analogous case has happened here in my
immediate neighborhood. The celebrated race
horse and great sire imported King Ban, owned
by Maj. B. G. Thomas of Kentucky, had a sin-
gular trick of standing, even out in his pad-
dock, with his fore legs crossed. Year by year
it came to be noticed that the colts of his get
in a singularly large number repeated this habit
until it got to be a thing regularly looked for
that quite a number of the foals of each year
should repeat their sire's extraordinary way of
standing. Their genial owner was very fond of
calling attention to this circumstance as one of
many striking illustrations of King Ban's power
of impressing his get with his own character-
istics.

As an extreme case of inheritance of a minor
peculiarity I may cite a case which has come
under my immediate observation of a gentle-
man whose hair grew in a peculiar manner on
his brow and at the crown of his head, being
what in common parlance is spoken of as very

28 CATTLE-BREEDING.

badly "cowlicked." This peculiarity was trans-
mitted to a son, and through a daughter to
two grandsons. This fact has been frequently
alluded to in my hearing by two barbers who
were in the habit of cutting their hair, and who
complained that their heads were all alike and
that it was impossible to get the hair of any
one of them to lie down. A number of cases
are reported of the transmission through a num-
ber of generations of a lock of hair colored
differently — most generally white — from the
rest of the hair; and I have known, in a family
of close friends, of the transmission through
several generations of a singular red mark down
the center of the forehead, and which is casually
spoken of as a matter of course as the "H—
blaze."

In respect to character and temper a number
of proverbs, such as "like father like son," "a
chip of the old block," and many others, attest
the popular faith in the doctrine of heredity.
It has come to be the common belief in this
country that great men's sons are rarely worthy
of their sires, but opportunity and education
have so much to do with making men what we
in this new world term great, that this argu-
ment cannot be pressed very far. That the sons
of great men have sometimes preserved their
birthright intact despite the snares of inherited
greatness the annals of many countries prove.

THE BREEDER'S CORNER-STONE. 29

One and twenty of the noble family of Scipio
attained to consular rank, and it was a daughter
of one of these who bore those brilliant orators
and splendid friends of popular liberty the
Gracchii. Among the lower animals the blood
of such horses as Eclipse and Lexington, of
Hambletonian and Denmark has shown not
only power but immense persistency in shaping
the three types of thoroughbreds, trotters, and
saddle horses.

I might go on thus multiplying instances, of
singular instructiveness in some cases, all point-
ing to the wide scope and the minuteness of
influence of the transmission of individual or
family peculiarities. But I must be content
with the few I have cited, only pausing to call
especial attention to the frequent abeyance in
one generation of a quality peculiar to the
opposite sex which at once appears in the prod-
uce of that animal of the contrary sex. This
is surely a very beautiful illustration of hered-
ity. No more apposite example can be given
than that of Comet Halley Jr., a Short-horn
bull of a good old family of excellent milkers,
who carried on the milking qualities of his dam
in a remarkable degree to his calves. Nor was
he more than a very prominent example of a
class. It is a frequent occurrence to see Jersey
bulls advertised as "butter bulls," which shows
the accepted view that bulls whose dams were

30 CATTLE-BREEDING.

butter cows will carry on the capability to the
third generation.

We thus lay down the general thesis that
"like begets like." It is now important that
this proposition should be somewhat carefully
analyzed. First, then, it follows without more
proof that ordinary qualities are transmitted.
Some of the examples show that even tricks
and peculiarities of body and of mind are trans-
mitted. It is, however, specially important to
note that defects and diseases are reproduced
with as great persistency and frequency as
normal characteristics. This is a point of deep
importance. The medical profession fully rec-
ognize it, and to the breeder it becomes a source
of care and watchfulness.

Medical science recognizes the inheritability
not merely of such diseases as consumption,
scrofula, and others of kindred nature, of men-
tal disorders such as lunacy and idiocy, of de-
fects such as imperfect sight and hearing, but
of many other obscure and faintly-developed
peculiarities of body, temperament, and mental
state. Deformities of every sort — abnormal
growths of hair, of scaly dermal affections,
and many like appearances — prove oftentimes
highly hereditable.

Pulmonary complaints affect cattle no less
than man, and are found to be quite as surely
passed on from father to son. Other weak-

THE BREEDER'S CORNER-STONE. 81

nesses of constitution, tendency to abortion,
to early loss of fertility, and so forth, are
the compensation to maintain an equilibrium,
where, on the other hand, high flesh-making
qualities and superior milking qualities are
similarly transmitted.

A few observed instances of this hereditary
nature of physical defects and diseases may not
be out of place by way of arresting attention
and exhibiting the very radical and far-reach-
ing influence which they possess.

As illustrations of mere physical defects the
well-known frequency with which persons who
are left-handed pass on the defect to their chil-
dren* may be considered as a limiting value,
that is as on the border land between a mere
habit and a physical defect. Darwin cites from
"Anderson's Recreations in Agriculture," etc.,
Vol. I, p. 68, the case of a one-eared rabbit which
produced a breed kept up for some time which
possessed only a single ear; and also the case
of a bitch which had a defect in one leg which
was transmitted to her puppies. The widely-
cultivated breeds of lop-eared rabbits and of
Manx tailless cats offer other illustrations of

*Thue in the Biblical account of the tribe of Benjamin: "The Lord
raised them up a deliverer, Ehud— a Benjamite, a man left-handed."—
Judges Hi, 15.

"And the children of Benjamin were numbered at that time. * * *
Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men left-handed;
every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss."— Idem
xx, 15-16.

32 * CATTLE-BREEDING.

this sort, and Darwin cites from a German
authority the very strong case of a cow which,
having lost a horn by disease, produced three
calves which in lieu of a horn on the same side
of the head as that from which their dam had
lost her horn had only a "bony lump merely
attached to the skin." Darwin suggests that
this case approaches "the doubtful subject of
inherited mutilations," but it is to be clearly
noted that the mutilation arose from disease
and not from mechanical means — a distinction
of the highest importance.

Passing on to the class of cases where the
cause is active and in the nature of disease we
find such well-authenticated cases as the inher-
itance of ringbone, spavin, navicular disease,
and similar affections in horses. These diseases
are most frequently latent at birth, and only
begin to develop as the horses reach maturity.
Of this sort Miles, in his work on stock-breed-
ing, cites the case of a mare that was affected
with ringbone and incapacitated by it for work,
but from which a number of colts were bred.
Her colts at two and three years old showed no
signs of the disease, but at five to six years they
had all of them developed the disease.

Another well-known disease which is well
recognized as hereditary among horses is roar-
ing, and even more so ophthalmia. The Irish
horse Cregan, of considerable celebrity, is re-

THE BREEDER'S CORNER-STONE. 33

ported (Dr. Finlay Dun in " Journal Royal Agri-
cultural Society") to have transmitted the lat-
ter disease, which he had in a very violent form,
to the fifth generation of his descendants, caus-
ing loss of sight at a very early age, one too
early for them under ordinary circumstances to
have contracted the disease.

But as already indicated pulmonary diseases
and scrofulous complaints, such as consump-
tion, diarrhea, dysentery, glandular swellings
and suppuration, are peculiarly subjects of in-
heritance, and readily pass into what may be
termed chronic hereditability; that is to say,
become congenital. These diseases have been
inmaii stucliedjwith great thoroughness as to
their congenital character, and the great mass
of statistics which have been gathered attest
this character beyond a question. Nor is it
less true of animals, and especially of cattle.
I have known family after family of cattle
which had congenital tuberculosis, and also not
a few with scrofulous tendencies to glandular
swelling and tumors. In some cases the organ
affected will not be the same. As for instance,
a cow will transmit a scrofulous tendency to
tuberculosis to her calf, but while in her it
affected the lungs in the calf it will affect the
alimentary canal and take the form of con-
sumption of the bowels or of chronic, malig-
nant diarrhea. These are the diseases which

34 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the stock-breeder should be most strongly
warned against, and the earliest possible mo-
ment should be seized for their extinction by
slaughtering all the animals in whose veins
flows the tainted blood.

And in these cases not less than in those
where some healthy quality is transmitted it is
not less usual for the disease or defect to skip
a generation, or to pass from one branch to a
collateral one in its appearance. Thus it fre-
quently occurs in both consumption and lunacy
that the alternate generations possess almost
entire immunity from the disease; and again,
that a father will transmit a disease to his
daughtersjbnly in the first generation, but also
to his son^ children in the second. Many such
irregular appearances are recorded. In some
cases the disease seemingly having a co-ordi-
nation with a certain temperament or bodily
peculiarity, as in one case where the disease,
consumption, showed an affinity for a blonde
type, while a brunette type about equal in num-
ber to the blonde possessed entire immunity.
None of these manifestations of irregularity in
transmission have ever been reduced to any-
thing more than the few general classes which
have been indicated. The subtle laws of this
department of nature being as yet unknown.

Thus we see what consideration is to be at-
tached to the inheritability of ancestral quali-

THE BREEDER'S CORNER-STONE. 35

ties. We have hitherto approached the consid-
eration of this subject in a broad general view.
It is now important to consider it from a more
special standpoint with reference to the actual
cases put to us in deciding upon a course of
breeding. The first question that meets us is
the relative value of the two animals at any
time interbred. We have the two animals, and
from their union according to the laws of pro-
creation springs a third. This animal is a pro-
duct of the parent natures, and our inquiry
now is: in what proportion. The prima facie
case is in favor of an equal influence of male
and female. With no further data for our con-
clusion we are driven to accept the equal fusion
as the only solution.

Many attempts have been made to show that
one parent controls the external appearance
and the other the disposition. Many more or
less ingenious theories have been advanced
taking almost every conceivable view; but I
am unable to see that any advance of a tangi-
ble nature has yet been made. And until such
is the ' case I think that we are justified in
assuming that in the simple form of the propo-
sition above given we are to assign equal weight
to each parent as a factor in the product.

We have, therefore, with respect to the ques-
tion of inheritance, to discover how the natures
of the parents have mingled. It needs no argu-

36 CATTLE-BREEDING.

ment to show how little we can tell of the
result by even a full knowledge of sire and
dam. It is as if two chemical substances hith-
erto never united were in our hands about to
be combined. Who could prophesy that two
parts of hydrogen gas and one of oxygen would
form a drop of water? Let the bull stand for
the two parts of hydrogen (H2) and the cow be
denoted by one part of oxygen (0), and inter-
bred we would have a product (H2 0) composed
of nothing but the two entities we once had
whose character and nature we understood, and
yet utterly inexplicable by anything known of
the component parts. The skillful analyst can
again resolve one drop of water into its origi-
nal elements. A careful observer may in one
case and another trace the lines where the two
animals unite in their offspring, but not very
often. The union of one animal nature with
another is too intimate and too subtle to ever
be clearly understood or sundered.

But in breeding cattle this much is certain:
that each breeding animal must be weighed in
the scale as one-half of every desired resultant.
This is the basis of all our calculations. We
shall see hereafter the special influences, such
as animal prepotency, which often affect this
calculation, and when once observed in any
given animal, whether existing as a positive or
negative quantity in the particular case in
hand, it must be taken into account.

THE BREEDER'S CORNER-STONE. 37

We see, then, that we must consider sire and
dam equally as factors in the product we desire
to obtain, and that each must be regarded as
eminently likely to reproduce in the offspring
not merely their form and nature in a general
way, but that they will even stamp their image
on the young animal in many smaller matters
of detail. It would appear as if the animal
were blocked out in the rough by a general
union of the two natures and finished in all
those elements which give individuality by a
somewhat promiscuous borrowing of the details
of feature and character of now one and now
the other parent. It seems promiscuous and
unordered because the laws which govern the
methods of God's great laws that control these
things are as yet unrevealed to us.

Let me borrow an illustration of how this in-
termingling would seem to be done from a new
application of an old art — composite photog-
raphy. The photographer takes upon his sen-
sitive plate the portrait of a man, immediately
upon this is superimposed that of another per-
son, and so on indefinitely. In the end a picture
is obtained in which those lines are very strong
that occurred in every face, and each line is
weaker in proportion to the number of faces
which lacked it; and so on till the lines which
occurred in only one face are faint and hazy,
and float like a mellow mist about the picture

38 CATTLE-BREEDING.

made of the coincident lines. So every animal
may be viewed as the sum of a large number of
images of his ancestors. Every \ine in all their
pictures is there; some so faint as to be of no
significance, others merely suggesting the an-
cestor here and there. Others, where a number
of tendencies unite on a single line, stand out
and really give the animal its character. Where
the lines of dam and sire lie one above the other
the character of the animal may generally be
traced. Where one is prepotent let us say that
the first picture is printed very faintly, the last
very heavily so as to almost obliterate the first
faint lines. Again, let us say that one ancestor
occurs a number of times in the pedigree of
both sire and dam — that is, that his picture is
taken in our composite photograph not once
but repeatedly, so that its lines really are the
chief factors in it. Will it be any surprise,
then, to learn that the final composite is singu-
larly like this ancestor? This is what is known
in cattle-breeding as atavism, or reverting to an
ancestor more distant than sire and dam.

But analogies must not be pressed too far.
And we find that a single cross sometimes
leaves so deep an impression in the blood that
evidences will crop out again and again in
remote descendants. But the special case of
atavism demands more special treatment than
can be given it in a remote allusion.

ATAVISM, OR REVERSION.

UNDER the name of "atavism" is now de-
scribed what was once more commonly spoken
of as "reversion/' and in common speech as
"throwing back" — i. e., the special form of
inheritance where the individual inherits some
peculiar trait of a remote ancestor (Latin
Atavus). We have had occasion already to no-
tice some instances of this in the course of the
general inquiry into the laws of inheritance.
It is now necessary to briefly particularize.

Darwin says ("Animals and Plants Under
Domestication/' Vol. II, p. 41), in treating of
this subject: "When the child resembles either
grandparent more than its immediate parents
our attention is not much arrested, though in
truth the fact is highly remarkable; but when
the child resembles some remote ancestor or
some distant member in a collateral line, and
we must attribute the latter case to the descent
of the members from a common progenitor, we
feel a just degree of astonishment." And while
this is true and the mind that is not familiar
with the singular and startling operation of the
laws of "atavism" is often wonder-struck at
the results, yet those who are familiar with the

(39)

40 CATTLE-BREEDING.

operation of that law — all who have had much
experience in breeding animals of the same
families for a number of generations especially
— become so accustomed to the reversion to an
old and long-unseen character as to regard such
a reversion as a matter of course. The gen-
eral recognition of atavism was probably first
reached by agricultural students, though spe-
cial cases were early recorded in human history.
Indeed, there are few more striking instances
of this law than that case recorded by Plutarch
of the Greek woman who gave birth to a negro
child, was tried for adultery, and was acquitted
upon the proof that she was descended in the
fourth generation from an Ethiopian. There
is also an interesting passage in Thackeray's
"Four Georges" (Vol. I, p. 4), in which he
marks the reversion of George III to the char-
acter of an ancestor of the eighth generation
—William of Luneburg — from whom he not
merely inherited his blindness and insanity
but also a number of the peculiar traits of
mind and some of the special abberations of
the old Duke. Writing of Duke William he
says: "He was a very religious lord and was
called 'William the Pious' by his small circle
of subjects, over whom he ruled till fate de-
prived him both of sight and reason. Some-
times in his latter days the good Duke had
glimpses of mental light, when he would bid

ATAVISM, OR REVERSION. 41

his musicians play the psalm-tunes which he
loved. One thinks of a descendant of his two
hundred years afterward, blind, old, and lost of
wits, singing 'Handel' in Windsor Tower."

Remarkable as this case is it is possible to
more than parallel it with many instances of
the highest authentication which have been
recorded by breeders of various sorts of ani-
mals. One of the most noteworthy of these is
that of a pointer bitch which at a particular
time produced seven puppies at a litter, of
which four were "marked with blue and
white." This was so uncommon a color for
the breed that it was supposed that some dog
of another breed had had access to her and all
the litter were marked for destruction, but the
game-keeper was permitted to keep one as a
curiosity: "Two years afterward a friend of
the owner saw the young dog and declared that
he was the image of his old pointer bitch Sap-
pho, the only blue-and-white pointer of pure
descent which he had ever seen. This led to
close inquiry, and it was proved that he was
the great-great-grandson of Sappho." (Darwin,
"Animals and Plants," etc.)

But it is quite unnecessary to multiply in-
stances. Under my own observation have come
many cases. One class of cases which are spe-
cially frequent in Short-horn cattle is that of
reversion to the colors of ancestors. This is so

42 CATTLE-BREEDING.

common as scarcely to deserve note when it
occurs. I recall one instance, for example,
where a red-roan bull was crossed on a well-
mixed roan cow and the product was a perfectly
white calf; and several similar cases where the
calves were red, which, on the whole, is more
remarkable since Short-horns exhibit a tend-
ency toward light colors in many cases.

Mr. Darwin divides the observed cases as to
animals under two principal heads: First, the
reappearance of a lost character in pure breeds
after a number of generations; and, second, the
reappearance, where a cross has been made, of
some peculiarity of the animal used to effect
the cross which had not formerly occurred in
the cross-bred descendants, or which had been
early lost on a return to the use of a single
strain upon the descendants of the cross.

Of the first class the not uncommon occur-
rence of small horns in well-bred Southdown
bucks long after the breed had been bred to a
hornless character is a widely-known example;
while of the second an instance is recorded by
Mr. Sidney, in his edition of "Youatt on the
Pig," of a Berkshire boar being used on an
Essex sow, the sows from which cross were
bred to pure Essex boars, but twenty-eight
years afterward a litter turned up containing
two pigs of well-marked Berkshire characteris-
tics, I have myself remarked in Kentucky

ATAVISM, OR REVERSION. 43

how long after the total extinction of the Long-
horn in this part of the world a calf would
appear with the notable Long-horn mark of a
white stripe down the backbone — a mark, I be-'
lieve, peculiar to that breed.

From a cattle-breeder's standpoint this rever-
sion to an archaic type is rarely a matter of
much importance. It is of frequent occurrence
in small things; thus, a black nose not infre-
quently crops out to the puzzle of the breeder
till it is traced to a distant grandsire. Pecu-
liarities of horn, of carriage, and many other
similar features constantly admonish the close
observer that "atavism" is a very real thing.

Not infrequently in a somewhat earlier day
the breeders of polled cattle found this law of
reversion a deterrent factor in their efforts to
fix a hornless character on their breeds. It is
now well settled that our polled cattle, cer-
tainly those of British origin, came from a
horned type. The historical evidence, which
for this purpose is almost conclusive, and the
geological record agree upon this point with
the greatest exactness. Long after the polled
breeds of England and Scotland had become
well recognized as distinct hornless breeds
animals would appear of the most undoubted
purity of blood with horns. The atavic char-
acter of such phenomena is obvious. Not only
is this true of British breeds, but of other sim-

44 CATTLE-BREEDING.

ilar ones. Thus we are informed by a good
authority that a polled breed in the Corrientes
not infrequently produced animals with small,
"misshapen, and sometimes unattached horns.

In treating of this question of atavism I have
purposely chosen to follow the line indicated
by Mr. Darwin in the quotation made at the
beginning of this chapter. He practically treats
it as the reversion to some ancestor more re-
mote than the grandparents. This is calculated
to show the more extreme instances of the
action of the law, and like all extreme 'cases
these are especially valuable as illustrations.
Other writers, however, make the term atavism
to apply to all reversions to an ancestor more
distant than the parents. Of these the French
writer on heredity, M. Ribot, is an eminent ex-
ample. In defining atavism ("Heredity," p. 166,)
he says: "Whenever a child, instead of resem-
bling his immediate parents, resembles one of
his grandparents, or some still more rempte an-
cestor, or even some distant member of a col-
lateral branch of the family — a circumstance
which must be attributed to the descent of all
its members from a common ancestor — this is
called a case of atavism." Under so broad a
definition as this all those cases where a grand-
son inherits through his mother his grand-
father's peculiarities of physical and mental
character, and a granddaughter her grand-

s ATAVISM, OR REVERSION. 45

mother's through her father, a most important
division of the subject of heredity would be
included. Nor are there wanting many and
highly-instructive cases of an inheritance from
a grandparent by a line of the, same sex pecul-
iarities of form and temper where the parent is
a mere connecting link in whom the quality
transmitted is latent, if in any true sense it can
be said to exist at all. Of such a transmission
we have instances in the descent of the great
qualities of Charles Martel (or the Hammer),
through Pipin the Short, to Charles the Great
(Charlemagne) ; of the celebrated Dutch marine
artist William Yandervelde to his more dis-
tinguished grandson William Vandervelde the
younger through a son who was an artist but
of no repute ; of the musical power of the elder
Louis Beethoven to his grandson the famous
Ludvig through an undistinguished son.

These cases are all upon a line of transition,
and no doubt it is the same law that is acting
through the whole series from parent to a re-
mote ancestor. The important idea which at
least for the purposes of the present inquiry it
is desirable to present at this time is the sudden,
unlocked for, and distinct reappearance after a
long lapse of some character of a remote ances-
tor for the last few generations extinct. Hence
it is best to adopt the definition laid down at
the beginning of this chapter, and relegate the

46 CATTLE-BREEDING.

special inheritance of the traits of grandparents
to an intermediate class.

I shall content myself for the present with
quoting one further instance of atavic mani-
festation of a most remarkable character, and
which is vouched for by high medical authority;
if it were not that other similar cases are on
record it would be quite incredible. It may be
added that albinos are often thus produced at
frequent intervals in some negro families. The
story runs thus (Ribot, "Heredity," page 169,):
"Two negro slaves living on the same Virginia
plantation were married. The wife gave birth
to a daughter who was perfectly white. On
seeing the color of the child she was seized with
alarm, and while protesting that she never had
intercourse with a white man, she tried to hide
the infant, and put out the light lest the father
should see it. He soon came in, complained of
the unusual darkness of the room, and asked
to see the babe. The mother's fears were in-
creased when she saw the father approach with
a light, but when he saw the child he appeared
pleased. A few days afterward he said to his
wife: 'You were afraid of me because my child
was white, but I love her all the more on that
account. My own father was white, although
my grandfather and grandmother were as black
as you and I. Although we are come from a
country where white men are never seen, still

47

there has always been one white child in fami-
lies related to ours.' ' This child was afterward
exhibited before the Royal Society in London
by Admiral Ward, who bought her from her
master. Gases of an exactly similar nature are
on record, some of which occurred in Africa,
beyond the possibility, it is claimed, of there
being any deceit practiced upon the observers.
Whether these cases trace to a distant and for-
gotten infusion of white blood, or to some phe-
nomena akin to that which gives us albinos, or
even to a true and concealed white cross imme-
diately, they are very remarkable as cases of
atavism or under the last supposition of an
unusual effect of prepotency, the laws of which
we are presently to examine.

PREPOTENCY.

WE HAVE seen that the ideal law of inherit-
ance is an equal mingling in the offspring of
the natures of the parents. This, however, is
rarely to be met in practical breeding. For
various reasons — greater vigor of race or indi-
vidual character, for example, in one parent
than the other — the ideal is seldom attained.
The young animal nearly always shows a closer
resemblance to one progenitor than the other.
The facts are very many, and the classification
of them is as yet incomplete and the deduc-
tions drawn from them tentative. Many theo-
ries have been advanced to explain the observed
facts. But the incompleteness of the data upon
which the speculations rest is well shown by
the fact that the theories are conflicting and
at times directly contradictory.

Out of this chaos of speculation and out of
the immense number of observations made in
the formulation and buttressing of the deduc-
tions of this and that class of thinkers a gen-
eral skepticism as to such laws of special organic
influence in all cases of a single character has
grown up and the theories have largely given

(48)

PREPOTENCY. 49

way to a general support of the doctrine long
a favorite with stock-breeders of prepotency.

Prepotency is the superior influence of one
parent over the other in determining the char-
acter of the offspring.

Prepotency is usually treated as (1) prepo-
tency of breed, race, species, and (2) prepotency
of the individual. The one is general and the
other special, the same law plainly acting in
the same way in both classes. The division,
however, has a special and very real value to
the stock-breeder.

No better illustrations of the operation of
this law in both classes can be given than those
afforded by cattle-breeding. Thus the Short-
horn was early recognized as a breed having
singular power of fixing its character on other
breeds. Says Mr. Darwin: "The truth of the
principle of prepotency comes out more clearly
when certain races are crossed. The improved
Short-horns, notwithstanding that the breed is
comparatively modern, are generally acknowl-
edged to possess great power in impressing
their likeness on all other breeds." This fac-
ulty has been called by a recent writer "free
power," from the readiness with which it is
transmitted, and after many investigations and
experiments he concludes that the Short-horn
possesses this "free power" in a higher degree
than any other breed of cattle. It is this qual-

50 CATTLE-BREEDING.

ity which has given them such a great reputa-
tion for crossing with the common native cattle
of many countries for the purpose of improving
them either as beef or milk producers or as the
general-purpose cow of the small farmer. So
great is this influence on other breeds that the
first cross often produces even from very in-
ferior cattle a beast scarcely inferior to the best
of the improved breeds. Indeed I have myself
known prize animals in the show-yard that
were by Short-horn bulls out of native or
"scrub'7 cows. And when put to pure-bred
bulls this excellence is maintained without
perceptible alteration, and many of the most
successful show animals in Great Britain and
America have had very short pedigrees.

While this "breed prepotency" is thus in an
eminent degree possessed by the Short-horns,
among them certain animals exhibit the indi-
vidual prepotent power in a high degree. Thus
the bull Favorite (252), which Mr. Colling bred
into his herd as deeply as possible, making as
many as three successive crosses with him, was
of great vigor and of great prepotency. Under
my own observation have come some very nota-
ble cases. Thus in the fifty-seven years since
the herd was founded at Grasmere in 1881 by
my father there have been twenty-seven sires
used upon it for a greater or less period. Out
of these thirteen were marked successes and

PREPOTENCY. 51

were for years used as stock bulls, and out of
these six showed a high degree of prepotency.
They were Oliver (2387), in use from 1833 to
1840; Goldfinder (2066), from 1836 to 1841;
Cossack (3508), from 1841 to 1844; Young
Comet Halley (1134), from 1844 to 1847; Ren-
ick 903, from 1847 to 1856; Muscatoon 7057,
from 1866 to 1873; and Baron Butterfly 49871
from 1883 to 1887. These bulls were all ani-
mals of an unusual capacity for impressing
their own excellence upon their get. Oliver,
the first in the list, belonged to the old Powell
stock and came to Kentucky at a time when
Short-horn bulls were chiefly used for breeding
cattle for the beef market. The steers of his
get were famous for their size and their extra-
ordinary capacity for taking on flesh, accom-
panied with the greatest fineness of bone. So
great was their bulk and so great the fineness
of bone that it was found almost impossible to
drive them, as the custom of the day was, to
the Eastern cities, which then as now were the
great consumers of Kentucky beef. His breed-
ing was no less excellent in his own harem,
where the cows were Short-horns of the best
strains. From him were bred a large number
of prize-winners, all of which showed their
descent very plainly. I have seen few, if any,
bulls that were superior to him as a sire, but
he was not remarkable for individual fineness.

52 CATTLE-BREEDING.

He was, in truth, somewhat plain, but possess-
ing some most desirable qualities, and it was
the fact that he transmitted these often to an
even higher degree than he himself possessed
them which made him so valuable as a sire
and so good an example of prepotent influence.
Goldfinder, Oliver's younger contemporary and
successor in the headship of the herd, was a
very unusually fine bull and successful in the
show-ring everywhere. He made a broad mark
on the herd by the general excellence of his
calves and won great repute by the phenome-
nal excellence and wonderful show-ring success
of some of his get, chief of which was the cow
Caroline. This cow was shown from the time
she was a calf at many exhibitions and never
once beaten. After Goldfinder came Cossack,
a very fine bull of Booth breeding and the first
to bring to many Kentucky breeders a true
realization of the high excellence of Booth
cattle. He was very prepotent and perhaps
has honor enough in having sired Buena Vista
299, the sire of Mr. Renick's great cow Duchess,
and thus grandsire of the great bull Airdrie 2478,
himself a grand sire; and in being through
Duchess the progenitor of the favorite line of
Eenick Rose of Sharons. Next Comet Halley
Jr., or Young Comet Halley, as he is also called—
a good bull and a good breeder, chiefly notable
for his remarkable prepotency in getting milk-

PREPOTENCY. 53

ing stock. His calves were fine examples of
the transmission of what are called "second-
ary sexual qualities" — that is, qualities by their
very nature peculiar to one sex and a concom-
itant of that sex by an animal of the opposite
sex. Comet Halley, the sire of Young Comet
Halley, was deeply bred in milking strains,
being by Frederick (1060), Mr. Whitaker's cele-
brated sire of milkers, and from the famous
Nonsuch, or Golden Pippin, tribe of Mr. Col-
ling, while on his dam's side he was sprung
from the admirable milking strain of the Illus-
triouses. His breeding thus gives us an insight
into the factors which go to build up the force
of which prepotency is the manifestation. But
to pass on, we find in Renick another animal
excellent indeed, but by no means extraordi-
nary himself, breeding with the utmost cer-
tainty and regularity cattle of really phenom-
enal character. I could readily name a long
list of prize-winners sprung from his loins, such
as Mary Magdalene, an unrivaled cow, massive
and deep fleshed, whose ankle bones even when
she weighed 2,225 Ibs. could be spanned by an
ordinary man's hand, and who bore her rather
gaudy red-and-white coloring with the dignity
of a perfect form; but it would in this place be
a mere unspeaking catalogue. One instance I
shall quote as a single example of his impress-
iveness as a sire.

54 CATTLE-BREEDING.

My father had an old brindle milk cow with
upturned wide horns, a coarse, mean brute, of
the true "scrub" type. This cow was bred to
Renick, and produced a red heifer calf of ex-
traordinary quality. I was a young man in
those days, and I told my -father that I was
going to take the old brindle cow's calf and
beat all the pure-breds. Of this he was skep-
tical. But the calf grew out finely and proved
invincible, being, so far as any could penetrate,
of the most perfect Short-horn type.

After Renick came Muscatoon, with an in-
terval of good but not specially notable sires.
Muscatoon quickly gained for himself a National
reputation. The herd had grown in numbers
and repute so that this celebrated bull reaped
much from the sowing of his predecessors. He
was certainly phenomenal, not simply as a
breeder, but in that his bull calves displayed
a large degree of the same power. For that
reason I have not included in this list 2d Duke
of Grasmere 13961, his son by Grace, a Rose of
Sharon cow, and used in the herd from 1874 to
1883, because his influence was little more than
a continuance of Muscatoon's impression. It
would be impossible to enumerate even a par-
tial list of the prize-winners this bull got. His
period fell at a time when there was great in-
terest in cattle-breeding, when the exhibitions
were thronged, and the whole country was

PREPOTENCY. 55

acquainted with cattle matters. His reputa-
tion under these circumstances flourished, and
such calves as London Dukes 3d and 6th, Lou-
don Duchess 4th, Maggie Muscatoon, Jubilee
Muscatoon, Duchess of Sutherland 6th, and
many others spread it everywhere.

Under very different circumstances Baron
Butterfly of the old Barmpton Rose family
came into the herd's chief place. But though
during the years that he was used cattle circles
were deeply depressed he won a wide reputa-
tion. For evenness and absolute certainty that
he would make his mark on his get he has
rarely been equaled. Certain marks he almost
never failed to transmit; so that it was scarcely
difficult to pick out of a large number of cattle
those sprung from him.

This somewhat extended account of personal
experience seems to me valuable, as it illus-
trates out of a record of many years the way
in which this prepotency of an animal mani-
fests itself. Out of twenty-seven sires only five
or six possessed it in a marked degree. Each
one of those twenty-seven was chosen with the
utmost care and prevision, with a view to se-
curing not only high merit but fine breeding
capacity. Thirteen were successful breeding
bulls, but all except those named did not make
a strong and nearly invariable mark on their
get. When bred to cows of vigorous constitu-

56 CATTLE-BREEDING.

tion the offspring was as likely to show a
clearly mingled likeness or a decided likeness
to the dam as to the sire. The few had so
great power of procreation in the line of the
general rule that "like begets like" that it was
wonderful that a calf did not resemble rather
than that it did resemble them.

It is easy to trace the lines of prepotency in
many well-known and thoroughly authenticated
cases. One of the most notable is to be found
in the singular resemblance preserved for many
generations in the house of Hapsburg, for so
long the reigning house in Austria. This re-
semblance, preserved in spite of foreign and
often totally unrelated marriages, has excited
the comment of the most unobservant. A
number of similar cases have been remarked in
the noble families of Rome, and it is not possi-
ble for any one with any faculty for observing
likenesses to view the long lines of portrait
busts which throng the galleries of Rome with-
out receiving a lively impression of the strong
resemblances, often persisting for many gener-
ations, in the" families whose successive genera-
tions are there preserved to us in their portraits.

Passing from man we find that in the horse
the influence of prepotency is not only recog-
nized and highly valued, but the personality of
it has been carefully distinguished. Thus the
horses Touchstone and Launcelot, though full

PREPOTENCY. 57

brothers, were as different as possible in the
stud. The get of Touchstone revealed their
paternity in a striking way, while Launcelot
was very wanting in impressiveness: uThe
Touchstones have been mostly brown or dark
bay, and as a lot have shown a high form as
race horses; while the Launcelots have been
of all colors and below mediocrity on the
turf."* In America the name of Lexing-
ton, himself long since laid away beneath
his native blue-grass sod, is still a power
in the Thoroughbred studs, and some more
recent sires, such as Longfellow, King Ban, and
others, have had wide celebrity for prepotency.
Among trotting horses, such animals as Rys-
dyk's Hambletonian, Mambrino Patchen, Pilot
Jr., George Wilkes, and others, have displayed
this power in a highly remarkable degree. It
is a task only for a tyro to trace the blood of
the Hambletonians and the Patchens when
once pointed out, even among a large number
of promiscuously-bred horses. The indications
extend to resemblances in color, form, gait,
9 temper, vigor, endurance, and every conceiva-
ble quality. The influence exerted by these
sires was truly remarkable in their own get,
and the way in which their get have maintained
and perpetuated them greatly heightens the
wonder with which we regard them.

* "Stonehenge" on "The Horse," quoted in Miles' "Cattle-Breeding."

58 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Another instance of this power is to be found
in the breed of saddle horses, which trace their
high excellence to the Thoroughbred horse
Denmark. He was celebrated for his saddle
qualities, and begat a large number of animals
of the same excellence. They in turn being
largely used in the stud produced a profound,
almost a transforming, effect on the saddle
horse of Kentucky. "Stonehenge" parallels
the case of Touchstone and Launcelot by a
very striking instance of individual difference
in breeding in greyhounds. The dogs Eanter,
Gipsey Prince, and Gipsey Royal, highly-bred
and widely-used stock dogs, though full brothers
produced stock "as different as possible.7'

An interesting case is given where a ram of
"a goat-like breed of sheep" from South Africa
was bred to ewes of twelve different breeds, and
in every instance the offspring were "hardly to
be distinguished from" the sire. This striking
case is probably to be ascribed to the class of
race prepotency, and was doubtless the result
of the vigorous, wild nature of the ram. A
valuable experiment recorded by that learned
French investigator, to whom all students of
natural science owe so much, Girou de Buza-
reingues, throws additional light on the same
class of cases. Two breeds of French sheep
were crossed with the Merino by putting Me-
rino rams to generation after generation of

PREPOTENCY. 59

the French ewes and the resulting cross-bred
ewes. The two breeds gradually yielded up
their character, but one much more readily
and rapidly than the other, showing a marked
difference in the native vigor of the two breeds.
But it is surely not necessary to multiply
examples. What has already been said is
certainly ample to found those applications to
practice on, which will presently be made, and
to convince every one that to secure the best
results in breeding cattle for market, bulls
must be used from breeds of marked prepo-
tency; and that in breeding cattle of pure breeds
there is a wide difference in the value of indi-
viduals; and that for the highest results bulls
of the greatest prepotency are to be sought.
That is all that could be hoped for. So great a
master as Darwin recognizes the difficulties in
anything more than an experimental recog-
nition of prepotency, and says: "On the whole
the subject of prepotency is extremely intri-
cate, from its varying so much in strength, even
in regard to the same character in different
animals, from its running either differently in
both sexes, or, as frequently is the case with
animals, * * * much stronger in the one
sex than the other, from the existence of sec-
ondary sexual characters — from the transmis-
sion of certain characters being limited by sex
— from certain characters not blending to-

60 CATTLE-BREEDING.

gether — and perhaps occasionally from the ef-
fects of a previous fertilization on the mother.
It is, therefore, not surprising that everyone
hitherto has been baffled in drawing up general
rules on the subject of prepotency."

VARIATION.

IN the foregoing chapters I have endeavored
to give a brief statement of the law of hered-
ity, and to illustrate the more important spe-
cial cases which occur under it. Even in the
discussion of the law and of its operation it was
evident that somewhere in Nature there was a
contrary force at work. What that is will now
be explained.

If the law of heredity always operated with
perfect precision and equal force the results of
breeding would be simple, and could always
be expressed by a mathematical formula. But
we have already seen that the normal condi-
tion even is not an equal admixture of the pa-
rents' natures; that this is purely theoretical
and ideal. The force of heredity under what
may be termed, perhaps not inaccurately, ab-
normal circumstances, we have had illustrated
in the subordinate laws of atavism and prepo-
tency. The exceptions to the rule o^heredity,
the power of darkness warring against the law
of light, the world-born tendency of chaos in
open opposition to heaven-born law and ojder,
now require our attention.

The fact that Nature sometimes departs from

(61)

62 CATTLE-BREEDING.

a right line early forced itself on the notice of
man. Monstrous births of man and beast find
a place in many of the early records of our race.
The causes of these departures from the law of
reproduction, from the rule that "like produces
like," were, however, long in being inquired
into in a scientific spirit. At first monstrous
births were looked upon as evidence of the an-
ger of the gods, and were regarded as portents
of impending evil. In time, however, reason
triumphed over superstition, and close investi-
gation showed that these notable and awe-in-
spiring monstrous offspring were only the ex-
treme and most radical cases of a large class
which were occurring more or less frequently
at all times in the animal and vegetable king-
doms. In short it came to be seen that in Na-
ture there is a tendency to change from the an-
cestral type under certain conditions. This is
more than a tendency to strong individualiza-
tion which some have been inclined to reckon
it. It differs in kind rather than degree, though
often very similar to such a strong individuali-
zation. It may be defined as a tendency to va-
riation from the parental type. Hence, it is
usually spoken of as 'Variation."

The causes of variation may be in a very
loose way classed as general, as affecting the
whole number of ancestry and produced by
gradual and long-continued influences; and spe-

VARIATION. 68

cial as affecting a single individual, and that
often suddenly and at a known time. Thus the
latter case is well illustrated by such paroxys-
mal occurrences as monstrous births of de-
formed, diseased, deficient and dwarf animals
resulting from a sudden shock to the mother
when pregnant. Perhaps to the same class are
to be referred those cases where the mother's
imagination has been deeply impressed at the
time of impregnation, and sometimes even
marking the offspring with some deformity cor-
responding with the subject of this mental im-
pression. It has been known for many centu-
ries that deformities, imbecility and other de-
fects in the offspring were caused by the mother
receiving during pregnancy a sudden fright or
being stricken with grief, and that the resulting
defect was very likely to be transmitted to pos-
terity. One of the most frequently cited in-
stances of the persistency of a suddenly acquired
peculiarity of this sort is that of Lambert, "the
porcupine man," whose skin was covered with
"warty projections which were periodically
moulted." His six children and two grandsons
were similarly affected, and the peculiarity was
observed for at least four generations, occurring
only in the males among his descendants. The
instance recorded in the book of Genesis of
Jacob's device to secure a large number of kids
which should be "ring-straked, speckled and

64 CATTLE-BREEDING.

grisled," is perhaps the earliest clear recogni-
tion of the influence of imagination at the time
of conception on the dam. One of the most
striking instances — one however, which may be
either classed as the effect of imagination at
the time of conception or during pregnancy, or
as the combined result of both — is that set out
in the following statement made by Mr. John
B. Poyntz of Maysville, Ky. "In the month of
July, 1863, the cattle,"" a lot of Alderney heifers
and a bull — none of which "were marked or
branded, nor were their ancestors" after 1850—
"were placed in a woodland pasture well pro-
vided with water and blue-grass, and in the
pasture were placed a number of Government
horses for a period of several weeks. Each
and every horse was branded on the lower
part of the left shoulder with the letters U. S.
In the spring and summer of 1864 the heifers
had calves. One of the number produced a fawn-
colored or reddish calf, and on the lower part of
the shoulder were the letters U. S., formed of
white hairs, plainly to be seen by casual observ-
ers, and shown by me to friends and visitors.
In due time my U. S. heifer had a calf, which
was marked with U. S. on the same place as
her dam. The letter S. was not so perfectly
formed as on the clam, but was too plain to be
taken for anything other than the letter S. In
the growth of these cattle or cows the letter

VARIATION. 65

moved higher up on the shoulder and appeared
to elongate, and in five or six years the char-
acter or form of the letter was lost and ap-
peared only as numerous small white specks or
spots." This statement, together with those of
a number of other persons, was published in
the Maysville Bulletin a number of years ago.
From my personal knowledge of Mr. Poyntz
there is no question in my mind of the truth of
his statement.

I shall not attempt to trace the action of the
mental and emotional nature on the uterine
system, and to show how or why the impression
is created. Some writers boldly, on a priori
grounds, reject the idea that such cases are in
any wise connected with the causes assigned
and refer them to the too common fallacy, post
hoc ergo propter hoc. The arguments most
often used against the causal connection of
frights and mental impressions with peculiari-
ties in the foetus are based on the fact that
such occurrences take place in a very small
number of cases proportionate to the number
of pregnant animals whose mental and emo-
tional natures have been acted on during preg-
nancy. Negative arguments of this sort are
utterly valueless. The cases which occur are
confessedly extraordinary. The sudden check-
ing of the regular flow of the blood to the foe-
tus or the arresting of the regular action of the

66 CATTLE-BREEDING.

secretory organs of the maternal system may
not improbably show its effect. The effect of
anger on the milk of a nursing woman, making
it unhealthy and even poisonous to the child, is
well known, but the cause is utterly undiscov-
ered. So here. In some cases, as that of the
mental shock of the murder of the favorite
Bizzio under the eyes of the pregnant Mary
Queen of Scots upon the future James I of
England, then in utero, the result is co-ordin-
ated with the cause; James' fear and shrinking
from weapons and conflicts being the natural
offspring of such a shock. Similar cases are
recorded where women have been frightened by
a one-armed or one-legged man, and produced
children having similar defects. But the far
larger number of cases are those in which the
mark upon the child has no connection in ap-
pearance with any outward semblance of the
cause or instrument of the shock or mental im-
pression. The mark runs from a mere mark,
such as a strawberry blotch — a frequent concom-
itant of shocks of grief or sorrow under my own
observation — up to horrible deformities. Some
years since a very brutal rape was committed
in Lexington, Ky., and thence sprang a child of
the most horrible deformity, the horror and
dread of every one who passed through that
part of the city where the child lived.
But it is in the class of cases first above

VARIATION. 67

named that the chief importance of the laws of
variation centers. The causes of general vari-
ation are many and often obscure. They are
often the long accumulated force of years sud-
denly unloosed; they are sometimes the long
continued attrition through generations of
unfortunately situated individuals. Changed
conditions, of climate, soil, food, or environ-
ment of any sort is then one of the great causes,
hence the great cause of change which we are
able to observe in domestication, involving as
it does in many cases the most radical changes
of environment. It is quite impossible to do
more than indicate in outline some of the more
notable facts connected with the operation of
these causes. They are chiefly important to
the cattle-breeder on account of two phases.
First, the development of a new and valuable
quality by taking advantage of the operation
of this law; and second, the encouragement of
the tendency to the loss (atrophy) of some ex-
isting feature which is deemed undesirable
where the law is operating to destroy it; or the
checking of this action by the proper change of
conditions of life where the feature that is be-
ing atrophied is desirable. As examples of
these cases we may take the Jersey, Holstein,
and Hereford cattle. In the Jersey by choos-
ing an artificial method of feeding, the breed-
ers of these cattle developed to an abnormal

68 CATTLE-BREEDINa.

condition the production of milk rich in butter
fats. The Holstein by a similar treatment
directed to the production of milk containing
a large amount of cheese-making products
(caseine) were carried to another special end.
The Hereford was driven to a high stage of beef
production under a specialized treatment. In
each case the intense stretching of the line in
one direction produced a counter effect by a
partial loss of neglected qualities; of beef pro-
duction in the Jersey, of that and also of fats
in the abundant and caseine-rich milk of the
Holstein; of milk production in the Hereford.
A different course was early adopted by, the
breeders of the Short-horn (Durham) and they
have always sought to develop this breed by
careful selection to a high excellence as beef
and dairy cattle, neglecting neither meat, milk,
butter nor cheese-making qualities, and care-
fully guarding against the atrophy of any de-
sirable quality.

"We have good grounds for believing," says
Mr. Darwin, "that the influence of changed
conditions accumulates, so that no effect is
produced on a species until it has been exposed
during several generations to continuous culti-
vation or domestication. Universal experience
shows us that when new flowers are first intro-
duced into our gardens they do not vary; but
ultimately all, with the rarest exceptions, vary

VARIATION. 69

to a greater or less extent." He quotes with
approval M. de Jonghe, who says that " There
is another principle, namely, that the more a
type has entered into a state of variation the
greater is its tendency to continue doing so;
and the more it has varied from the original
type the more it is disposed to vary still fur-
ther.". What is here said of plants is as far as
observed true also of animals, and the poet not
only has not exaggerated, but rather under-
stated the case, who says:

"The grapes which dye [our] wine are richer far,
Through culture than the wild wealth of the rock ;
The suave plum than the savage-tasted drupe;
The pastured honey bee drops choicer sweet ;
The flowers turn double and the leaves turn flowers;
********

The wild flower was the larger— [we] have dashed
Rose blood upon its petals, pricked its cup's
Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit,
And show a better flower if not so large."

All variation, of course, is not toward im-
provement. It is by selection of those variants
which exhibit more desirable qualities than the
parent stock and inter-crossing them that these
improvements are effected. Variation in a
wild state is often retrograde. Seed that has
fallen upon an unkindly soil is sure in a few
generations to begin to vary for the worse. It
is only by the closest watchfulness that man
can keep up many of the highly-esteemed, im-
proved varieties of animals and plants. In these

70 CATTLE-BREEDING.

cases man has developed, built up, changed, and
by his interference he has introduced a new
element of artificial life and dependence upon
man into their natures. If this support were
withdrawn the retrograde movement would
speedily begin. Watch the summer fields and
see how much more lusty the weeds grow than
the corn, the cockle than the wheat. And the
ignorant, seeing how quickly deterioration
takes place in wheat that is run wild, stamped
their recognition of this tendency by attribut-
ing to the wild rye, or "cheat/' the character of
degenerate wheat. In the economy of Nature
the ordering of these relations of life is the
same as under domestication, if not so obvious.
By "natural selection" the strongest are made
stronger; the weaker go to the wall. The sur-
vival of the fittest was a well chosen and apt
term to express this idea. On some soils one
plant will thrive and displace others which
would displace it in a different soil. In one
climate one variety of animals finds a conge-
nial home while others pine and die.

But Nature is a cherishing mother. She
knows the pangs of parturition too well to
destroy a race of children which only need to
be modified to meet new conditions of life.
Hence, we see many animals and plants which
after enduring changed condition of life for
some generations suddenly begin to vary; that

VARIATION. 71

is, to try to adapt themselves to their new cir-
cumstances. Sometimes where nutritious food
is less easily obtained the animal deteriorates,
but is at the same time better adapted to its
surroundings ; again, where nutritious foods be-
come more abundant a corresponding change
for the better occurs. The Shetland ponies
well illustrate this. " They are perfectly adapted
to their bleak and barren habitat, and this
adaptation is certainly due to a deterioration
from a larger and more active and more ele-
gantly formed beast. The coarse bone, spe-
cially notable in the disproportionately large
and ill-formed head, shows this, and they have
developed a thick suit of wool in addition to
the natural coat to protect them against the ex-
treme cold, which comes on in the autumn and
is early shed as spring deepens into summer.
Imported into warmer climes these ponies in a
few generations show a tendency to increase.in
size and lose the auxiliary coat of woolly hair.
Wherever an animal or a genus finds it possi-
ble to adapt itself to its changed conditions it
does so and survives, but many become extinct.
We have in the geological record some remark-
able examples of efforts on the part of animals
to adapt themselves to such changes. Thus a
mollusk family which was once very abundant,
but which is now very rare, has left a wonder-
ful record of its extraordinary efforts to main-

72 CATTLE-BREEDING.

tain itself. The early forms of this mollusk
inhabited a slender tube often of very great
length, as for example the orthoceratite, which
is a common Silurian fossil. In later times
the more highly developed species were closely
coiled, the highest of all being the still existing
but rare "pearly nautilus," commonly known
as the "paper sailor." For a great period the
conditions seemed highly favorable to this fam-
ily, and many beautiful species are preserved
in our rocks. But a time came when the world
had ceased to smile on them. The beautiful
spirals then began to uncoil; some straightened
out almost to the straight tube of the first an-
cestral type, and from this to the close coil al-
most every imaginable modification has been
found. It was a brave fight plainly enough,
but a vain struggle against an unkind fate.

It logically follows that such variations as
are produced by an effort at adaptation to new
surroundings would be likely to reproduce
themselves upon the descendants of the animal
in which it exists. In the variations of the
class first treated of there is no such marked
logical basis for persistence, since when bred
back to animals of the ordinary form of the
species the whole force of inheritance would
militate to eradicate it. But even in these
cases the malformation or other variation
shows oftentimes a prepotency over the nor-

VARIATION. 73

mal. In the cases resulting from the effort of
Nature to adapt the beast to its surroundings
the prepotency is more marked, so much so
that it is one of the accepted principles that
ua variation is prepotent over a normal char-
acteristic." The variations being here the
result of an accumulated tendency of a long
period, often of many generations, not unnat-
urally show great strength and persistency.

As we have seen, there is no rule by which we
can measure the amount of prepotency in any
given animal or of any given tendency. Some
variations occurring singly are naturally diffi-
cult to fix. Others occur contemporaneously
in more than one animal, and these interbred
give a starting point. In the breeding of pig-
eons the great field outside of the vegetable
kingdom for the study of variation, selection
and other natural laws, many new and peculiar
varieties have been obtained by somewhat ran-
dom crosses from which variations of many
kinds have been secured and great numbers of
extraordinary varieties obtained, all of which
breed perfectly true.

The frequent boast of the breeders of polled
breeds of cattle that when crossed with the
horned breeds & great majority of the young
cattle are hornless is a good illustration of this
prepotency of the variation over the normal
type, which is the more notable when taken in

74 CATTLE-BREEDING.

connection with the fact already cited that, at
least down to very recent times, few herds, of
however pure descent, failed to show an occa-
sional sport reverting to the horned type from
which they sprang.

/ It is important to observe that where varia-
tions occur they rarely affect a single organ, but
to a greater or less extent the whole body, and
it is particularly noteworthy that certain or-
gans are in very close and intimate relations
with each other, and that a change or modifica-
tion of one is either accompanied by or quickly
followed by a similar one in the other. This is
no cause for wonder to any one who has studied
the beautiful adaptation in all animal life of
means to end, of organ to function. The all-
wise Creator, in His infinite foresight,* has thus
bound up every organism in the threads of a
system which is not to be raveled out by man,
but which may be viewed in its perfect har-
mony in such studies as this. Observe the cor-
relation of stomach and teeth in all animals;
compare the rodents and the ruminants, for in-
stance, in this respect. These major organs of
close and obvious functional relations are easily
seen as united by a close bond. Many other
and unexpected examples of correlation have
been observed. "Thus pigeon fanciers have

* For a fine discussion «-.f "Design," as applied to this subject, see the
Duke of Argyle's "Reign of Law."

VARIATION. 75

gone on selecting pouters for length of body,
and we have seen that their vertebrae are gen-
erally increased in number, and their ribs in
breadth. Tumblers have been selected for their
small bodies, and their ribs and primary wing-
feathers are generally lessened in numbe^.
Fantails have been selected for their large,
widely-expanded tails, with numerous tail
feathers, and the caudal vertebrae are increased
in size and number." Among cattle we find
that the hair and horns are correlated; so also
the color of the face and the extremities; and
some have thought that the circulatory system
has something more than a mere physiological
effect on the hide, being correlated with it;
the connection between color of the hide and
of the hair is well settled. An effort was
at one time made to show that the connec-
tion between the milk glands and the nutri-
tive organs were thus correlated. That- is,
that if the milk glands were largely developed
it would so affect the organs of nutrition as
to prevent the rapid accumulation of flesh.
Perhaps a more accurate statement of this
view would be that the milk glands and the
organs of flesh-production were in a three-fold
bond with the nutritive organs, which so acted
as to prevent a development of cattle in a high
degree as both milkers and beef-makers. The
correlation of course being something more

76 CATTLE-BREEDING.

than the ordinary physiological connection.
Now it is a matter of common observation that
a special shape of the whole beast is typical of
the two kinds of cattle. The beef type is the
blocky, square-framed animal ; the milk type,
on the other hand, is wedge-shaped, with the
base to the rear, and 'tends to angularity. In
these types are to be seen well-marked types of
correlation. But it does not follow, and here
was the fallacy of the oldtjaeory, that be-
cause an animal bred for rajfe alone would
gradually assume one type, and one bred for
milk alone another, that the two qualities
could not be compositly produced in a single
animal; least of all, that the organs of nutri-
tion were appositely correlated with the organs
of beef and milk production, which was the"
thesis sought to be maintained. On the con-
trary, it is obvious that both milk and beef pro-
duction are co-ordinate functions of the animal
body, and that while one may be abnormally
developed at the expense of the other, the nat-
ural state is one of balance. The mother that
is herself beefy if unprovided with enough milk
to keep a thrifty calf, indeed, almost negatives
thereby the chances of the calf's growing into
a deep-fleshed animal by imposing upon it a
calfhood of insufficient nutriment. Of course
in an artificial life the owner provides against
this by nurse cows and other means, and so

VARIATION. 77

maintains a race of non-milkers. I am inclined
to believe that Jersey calves allowed all their
mother's milk till eight months old would pro-
duce in a few generations cattle inclined to
vary to a higher type of beef cattle; excessive
nutriment being the great cause of variation,
as floriculturists and horticulturists have won-
derfully shown.

But I shall not multiply instances of corre-
lated variation, nor shall I go more deeply into
this great, complex, and inadequately under-
stood subject. We have seen that under
changed conditions of life all animals tend to
vary; that such variations as are thus produced
may be made permanent by selection; that such
a variation is prepotent over a normal charac-
teristic, and is generally complex rather than
single, affecting more than one organ, and that
certain organs are so intimately related that
any modification of one is accompanied or fol-
lowed by a modification of the other.

PART II.-THE THEORY APPLIED.

APPLICATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE.

I HAVE always placed the highest possible
value on a thorough understanding of the great
natural laws of reproduction. I have, there-
fore, dwelt upon them at great length, and yet
have only outlined them. I could wish that all
breeders of cattle could have the inclination,
time, and opportunity to master the investiga-
tions of Darwin, Lucas, Ribot, and a host of
other careful students and laborious collectors
of facts in this field. But we must be content
for the present with what we have in hand and
proceed to examine the applications of these
laws to the practical principles of breeding.
The true aim of every enterprising breeder is
to hold fast to the good and stretch forward
toward the better — progressive conservatism
in fine. He must maintain the good which
came into his keeping ; if possible he will im-
prove upon it.

The pole star of the breeder's career is, there-
fore, the 'law that "like produces like." By it
he steers under all ordinary circumstances.
Ordinarily speaking, then, the breeder expects
to have his stock breed like themselves ; breed
"true/' as the colloquial expression is. This is

6 (81)

82 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the sum of the hopes and expectations of a
large majority of breeders; and we shall see in
the course of this study that the principal value,
as breeding cattle, of thoroughbred* varieties
is that by having been long bred to a definite
standard they have attained a fixed type from
which they rarely depart, and may in conse-
quence be trusted to "breed true," and also
that the fundamental idea of "pedigree" is a
guarantee of fixedness of character with a high
standard.

The breeder next advances to the law of pre-
potency, and applies it principally by seeking
an animal possessed of it for the head of the
herd, thus endeavoring to fix his good qualities
on all of the produce of the herd. In choosing
a breeding bull no wise breeder can afford to
neglect a careful study of his capacity as a
breeder. A fine animal of high prepotent in-
fluence is one of those rare discoveries which
go to make men successful above their fellows;
and the advent of such a lord into the harem
is oftentimes an epoch-making event.

The average breeder has little to do with
atavism in practice except in a negative way,
for while he may meet frequent instances in
which it will show itself, it is not regular in its
action and cannot be embraced in any calcula-
tions for the future.

*I use this word in the sense now eo commonly given to it of purely bred.

APPLICATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE. 83

The laws of variation, on the other hand, are
always to be kept in mind. Variations are,
perhaps, rare ; when they occur they doubtless
are not of a radical type in our old and well-
established varieties. But variations do occur,
and occur sufficiently often, and are sufficiently
definite to merit careful attention and to en-
courage the thoughtful breeder to make the
most of them. In the more recently improved
breeds — in the grade and " scrub" and crossed
cattle — variation takes place more often. But
however these laws may be regarded as ab-
stract and theoretical, the practical experience
of almost any observant breeder will quickly
convince the most skeptical that it is of the
utmost importance that these laws should be
understood, not perhaps in the sense that every
breeder should be able to define and explain
them, but rather that however formally unrec-
ognized, yet that they should be practically
acted on. The difference between the man
who weighs well the rules and laws of Nature
in the light of his experience, with a full
knowledge of all that has ever been written on
the subject, and he who, recognizing simply that
a bull breeds like himself in proportion as he
is vigorous, lusty, and well bred, selects in con-
sequence a bull of these qualities, and of the
highest degree of excellence obtainable, to use
on his herd of fine cows, is much the same as

84 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the difference between six and a half a dozen.
The existence and operation of the same laws
are recognized in both cases. The fact that
one man formulates, after a thorough analysis,
the end and the means to reach it, while the
other merely acts on the rules of his experi-
ence, which were no less real though never dis-
tinctly recognized except in a very general
way, does not have the least significance. We
shall see presently that the very first practical
question presented to the breeder involves a
knowledge of these laws of procreation. It is
possible, of course, to breed cattle in a hap-
hazard, unregulated way, taking little or no
thought for the morrow and letting the present
take care of itself. With such methods we
have nothing to do. My effort is to address to
the practical, wide-awake American farmer a
treatise which will give him the light of years
of -study and experience, and to do what I can
to encourage intelligent and well-considered
habits of breeding.

INBREEDING.

ONE of the first problems which presents itself
to the cattle-breeder is, What definite plan shall
be followed in order to secure the best results?
Nature's method seems to be a wide and gen-
eral system of selection, in which the strong
and vigorous are the winners and the weaker
are crushed out. Among wild cattle the more
lusty bulls have their choice of the cows in a
way that under natural selection insures the
best results to the race. No data under these
circumstances can possibly exist as to how
closely or how remotely such animals are inter-
related, except it were in some few isolated and
unimportant cases where a few animals may
have chanced to be secluded from their kind.
Under the normal wild state the tendency, esti-
mated by the laws of " average," would be to
maintain a nearly perfect balance year in and
year out, generation after generation. If the
conditions of life should suddenly change the
result on such wild cattle would be to deterio-
rate or to improve the average according as the
change was for their advantage or disadvan-
tage. It is quite apparent that no question of
breeding intrudes itself here. Nature's selec-

(85)

86 CATTLE-BREEDING.

tion, while always in favor of the maintenance
of the animals in the best manner, yet is
impartial, and under ordinary circumstances
would maintain an average. But under the
well-known theory of averages, while the far
greater number of cases fall at or near the
average line, at the same time some will fall
quite far away, and as many will exceed as fall
short, and the extreme variation up and down
will be equal. Say, for instance, that the aver-
age height of men in America is five feet six
inches, then it follows that there are as many
men over as under that height, and that the
same is true with relation to two lines of equal
distance from the line of average above to be-
low— that is, there will be as many men under
five feet as over six. It is not necessary to dis-
cuss at length the laws of "averages" and of
"deviation from an average," these two prop-
ositions are now so well settled. We have,
then, this first proposition, that all animals,
under ordinary circumstances, will in a state
of nature maintain the same average, and also
that there will be a deviation of considerable
extent above and below the average and of
equal degree and extent both ways.

Let man interpose and domesticate a number
of animals of one kind and Nature's laws are
at once set aside. Naturally, those deviating
furthest below the average are first disposed

INBREEDING. 87

of, thus at once raising the average; then the
males of highest deviation upward are selected
to breed from, and under the idea that "like
produces like" we are justified in expecting a
further elevation of the average; and if a still
further selection is made on the same basis,
rejecting all bad and choosing only the best
males to breed from, the improvement should
be steady and should continue generation after
generation. But throughout this process the
tendency is by rejecting many inferior animals
to reduce greatly the number of animals taken
into our calculations. If we started after our
first rejection with only a few very choice ani-
mals we would soon be brought face to face
with the question as to whether we shall or
shall not practice breeding of closely-related
animals to each other. This is the exact prob-
lem which most improvers have had to solve
as a living, assertive question which could not
be evaded.

A few cows being chosen, and the best obtain-
able bull used on them, in many cases phenom-
enal results were obtained. Now and again a
bull would turn up so superior as a breeder that
it would seem as if it were a step backward to
breed his get to any other bull except their sire
or one of their brothers. Improvers of a num-
ber of breeds found that this method fixed and
perpetuated the superior qualities which had

88 CATTLE-BREEDING.

been obtained, and many of them set a plain
and intentional example of close, even highly
incestuous breeding. The problem which they
left to posterity is, Was this course an extra-
ordinary one demanded by exceptional circum-
stances, or was it a general course commended
and approved by the wise men of olden time
for ordinary conditions, and consequently a
valid precedent ?

Thus we find Robert Bakewell, the celebrated
improver of Leicestershire sheep and Longhorn
cattle, breeding very closely. Bakewell is the
typical eighteenth century improver. Before
his time many experiments were made; but the
great idea which prevailed in the earlier time
was that crossing of different breeds was the
road to improvement. Bakewell struck out
along the then novel line of careful selection
from a single variety or breed. He began his
work by selecting the most completely distinct
lines of blood to be found among Longhorns, and
the best obtainable animals of those strains.
Mr. Webster of Canley, in Leicestershire, prob-
ably had the best herd of Longhorns in England,
and from this herd Bakewell obtained two heif-
ers, and then he brought a " promising" young
bull out of Westmoreland. From this small
beginning he built up his famous herd. The
produce of these three animals were crossed
and intercrossed; but, to quote Youatt, "as his

INBREEDING. 89

stock increased he was enabled to avoid the
injurious afid enervating consequence of breed-
ing too closely 'in and in.' The breed was the
same, but he could interpose a remove or two
between the members of the same family. He
could preserve all the excellencies of the breed
without the danger of deterioration."

We see that he first selected the best obtain-
able animals of absolutely unrelated stocks;
they were said to belong to two " branches" of
the Longhorn breed; from these he bred very
closely at first, and then as the number of
animals increased he made the relationship of
the animals as distant as possible within the
limits set. Other breeders used his bulls, but
he clung to his original families. This course
resulted in the most absolute concentration of
blood, as all lines ran to the three original
animals. Let us take for an example the cele-
brated bull Shakespeare, said to have been the
best of Longhorn bulls, as an individual and as
a breeder. By referring to the diagram pre-
sented on the next page, which gives his extended
pedigree, his breeding will appear at a glance.
The Westmoreland bull was put to the first of
the Canley heifers, known as Old Comely, and
produced the bull Twopenny, a very widely
esteemed bull. Twopenny was then put to his
own dam and produced a heifer known as the
"Dam of D," and also to the other of the two

90

CATTLE-BREEDING.

original Canley heifers, called the "Canley Cow,"
twice in succession, getting the "Son of Two-
penny" and the "Daughter of Twopenny."
Thereupon the Twopenny cow out of Old Come-

r Son of Twopenny

GQ

Dam of D

f Twopenny

A Canley Cow

Twopenny

Old Comely

( Westmoreland Bull
I Old Comely

j Westmoreland Bull
( Old Comely

Daughter of Twopsnny -

Twopenny

A Canley Cow

( Westmoreland Bull
( Old Comely

ly, being bred to the Son of Twopenny, pro-
duced the noted bull "D," and then "D," being
bred to the "Daughter of Twopenny," produced
Shakespeare. Of this latter bull, Marshall*
says: "This bull is a striking specimen of what

* Marshall, " Midland Counties," quoted by Youatt.

INBREEDING. 91

naturalists term accidental varieties. Though
bred in the manner that has been mentioned,
he scarcely inherits a single point of the Long-
horned breed, his horns excepted. * * * *
His horns apart, he had every point of a Hold-
erness or a Teeswater bull. Could his horns
have been changed he would have passed in
Yorkshire as an ordinary bull of either of those
breeds. His two ends would have been thought
tolerably good but his middle very deficient.
He has raised the Longhorn breed to a degree
of perfection which without so extraordinary a
prodigy they might never have reached." This
bull was very prepotent: "It was remarked,"
says Youatt, "that every cow and heifer of the
Shakespeare blood could be recognized at first
sight as a descendant of his." In the get of
Shakespeare the highest point of excellence
and reputation to which the Longhorn ever
reached was attained. To quote Youatt once
more: "What has become of Bakewell's im-
proved Longhorn breed? A veil of mystery
was thrown over most of his proceedings which
not even his friend Mr. Marshall was disposed
to raise. The principle on which he seemed to
act, breeding so completely in and in, was a
novel, a bold and a successful one. Some of
the cattle to which we have referred were very
extraordinary illustrations, not only of the
harmlessness but the manifest advantage of

92 CATTLE-BREEDING.

such a system; but he had a large stock on
which to work, and no one knew his occasional
deviations from this rule, nor his skillful inter-
positions of remote affinities when he saw or
apprehended danger. The truth of the matter
is that the master spirits of that day had no
sooner disappeared than the character of this
breed began imperceptibly to change. It had
acquired a delicacy of constitution inconsistent
with common management and keep, and it
began slowly but undeniably to deteriorate.
Many of them had been bred to that degree of
refinement that the propagation of the species
was not always certain."

Bat the example had been taken to heart,
and many breeders began to adopt with many
kinds of stock the "Bakewell method." In the
Short-horn counties a number of breeders be-
gan a general movement toward improvement.
They began with the Bakewell method in a
modified form, and perhaps never used it in so
extreme a form as did some of the Longhorn
breeders. The Collings, for instance, the most
notable as improvers in the Short-horn field,
did not use their great bull Hub back in any-
thing like the incestuous manner that other
bulls were used. It was not till Favorite (252)
appeared that the great piece of in-and-in
breeding in Short-horn history was inaugu-
rated. Favorite's sire and dam were both by

INBREEDING. 93

Foljambe, so that he had a double cross of
Hubback, but he was full of miscellaneous
blood. Mr. Colling found him a- 'remarkable
sire and a bull of great vigor, and used him on
his own get, and in a few cases bred him to his
own calves out of his own calves. His wonder-
ful powers gave a very satisfactory series of
results, and to him trace a large portion of the
most esteemed Short-horn families. After Mr.
Colling's time the Favorite blood became so
famous that in some cases the most extra-
ordinary closeness of breeding was followed.
Take for example Mr. Adkin's cow Charmer
(E. H. B., Vol. VI, p. 295), calved in 1839, thirty
years after Favorite's death. This cow traces
in no less than four hundred and eight lines to
Favorite, and as Foljambe and Hubback are
each represented twice each time that Favorite
occurs, to each of them at least eight hundred
and sixteen times. I say at least, for she traces
to each of these, bulls many more times, espe-
cially Hubback, along other lines through Ben
(70), Old Cherry, Lady Maynard, Broadhooks, and
many others. I have not calculated the exact
number of times that Hubback appears in the
pedigree, but it is considerably over one thou-
sand times. A number of Mr. Booth's cattle
show an extraordinary interfusion of the Favor-
ite blood. Take for example his celebrated
bull Crown Prince (10087), which shows 1,055

94 CATTLE-BREEDING.

lines to Favorite. This bull was crossed on
Red Rose by Harbinger, which boasted no less
than 1,344 lines of that highly-prized blood, so
that the joint legacy to their offspring was
2,399 crosses from Favorite, and consequently
they were more than 5,000 times descended
from Hubback (4,798 through Favorite, the
others through a variety of lines). But as these
lines had been gathered up in a large number of
generations and greatly intermixed, Mr. Carr
("History of Booth Short-horns") is justified in
saying that "it will not do," in calculating the
amount of in-and-in breeding practiced in this
family, "to claim bulls as of kindred blood on
this ground only."

It would be easy to quote a number of in-
stances showing a tremendous number of lines
centering in those early bulls. But from the
beginning there were a very large number of
breeders of the various sorts — the Holderness,
the Teeswater, and other varieties of Short-
horns— and the tendency, except with a few
breeders, was to use the get of the celebrated
bulls on great numbers of widely-drawn strains.
The ever-widening circle, the early movement
to exportation to foreign lands, effectually
prevented the kind of concentration of blood
secured in the improved Longhorn. I shall
consider in a subsequent chapter the special
cases of some of the more celebrated breeders

INBREEDING. 95

who continued to follow in-and-in breeding for
a long period of years. Were it necessary in-
stances drawn from the early history of most
of our improved breeds could be cited showing
the predominant influence of one or two early
bulls on the race history.

Nor has it been otherwise in the history of
improvement in other animals. Some of the
more fastidious breeders of the Thoroughbred
race horse insist that every animal must trace
in every line to an oriental source. As only
comparatively few Arabs and Barbs were ever
imported into England such pedigrees when
fully extended would exhibit a great converg-
ence as the further end was reached. Such a
diagram would be very remarkable, as the
theory on which the Thoroughbred has been
all but universally bred is one of avoiding
anything approaching close breeding, so that
a rapid expansion of blood-lines followed the
earlier and necessary close breeding. In many
varieties of Bantam fowls in-and-in breeding
has always been resorted to; indeed, it has been
found almost impossible to maintain the very
small size of these fowls where they are not
constantly closely interbred. The same is true
of many varieties of atoy" pigeons, the tiny
size being maintained by the most constant
return to a single line of blood — mating brother
and sister, and similar cases of incestuous
crosses.

96 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Much experiment with many varieties of
animals has given a few great facts that are
very generally accepted; besides these, there are
many significant facts the force and weight of
which are greatly controverted. We must now
examine into both of these classes, and if
possible draw some practical conclusions from
them.

It is conceded on every hand that the Bake-
well school of breeders began on a correct
principle. Given a large number of animals,
only a few of which are possessed of certain
desired qualities, we must take these few and
interbreed them; select again from the offspring
of these such as exhibit the desired qualities in
the highest degree, and interbreed them, and
so on till the whole number of produce shall
show a general conformity to the type sought,
A few generations are generally sufficient to
fix the type; to fix it so as to make it capable
of transmission to any ordinary stock of the un-
improved sort with which it may be crossed.
The question then arises, How far is such, a
course to be persisted in?

We have noted already the physical decay
resulting from long-continued close breeding
in the Longhorn. It is pretty well established
t}iat in-and-in breeding invariably results in
general deterioration of the whole animal
nature when long continued. Just what is the

INBREEDING. 97

limit line has never been determined, and in-
deed can never be, for much depends on the
vigor and vitality of the stocks used. It is
well recognized that a breed with fresh blood,
unpolluted by the evils so commonly resulting
from the unnatural, artificial life of a domestic
condition, will stand in-and-in breeding better
and give more valuable results from such a
system than a breed long domesticated and
with a system impaired by long continuance
under artificial conditions of life. The decay
consequent upon such in-and-in breeding at-
tacks first of all, in most cases, the generative
organs, producing reduced fecundity, infertility,
impotency, tendency to abortion, etc. These
disorders are accompanied or followed by
organic troubles affecting the animal in those
organs which for any reason are weakest, most
frequently appearing as pulmonary and tuber-
culous diseases, scrofula in all its 'many forms,
ophthalmia, etc. The first appearance of these
symptoms is not a danger signal. The danger
was long ago; the damage is already done.
Such forms of disease are strongly prepotent,
and will linger long in the decayed stock upon
which they have been engrafted.

Among human beings we are all familiar
with the divine law which forbids incestuous
marriages, and with the fact that this law has
been engrafted into most human codes, and

98 CATTLE-BREEDING.

scarcely less with the cases of idiocy, insanity,
consumption, and scrofula which have resulted
from a defiance of this law, sometimes only in
spirit, as by the frequent intermarriage of rela-
tions not within the limits of incest.

The force of the argument against in-and-in
breeding has been sought to be broken by citing
the case of the Jews. There is much to be said
for this example. In the earliest record of the
race we see in the marriages of Abraham and
Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, of Jacob and
Leah and Rachel that close and intimate inter-
marriage which in an early stage and under
the circumstances presented by a primitive race
dwelling near to a state of Nature is in accord
with general experience the most potent influ-
ence for fixing a race type. But we see as the
race is more expanded the stringent law against
incest, and among a numerous people dwelling
in a rough and mountainous country, and at
no long period acquainted with the enervating
influences of a luxurious life of ease and dissi-
pation, such as was the state of the Jews until
the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; or dwell-
ing in every land and among all peoples, sepa-
rate and apart, communicating and intermarry-
ing with their kindred in many lands, excluded
from most of the temptations to luxury and
vice by caste lines, as is their now long-exist-
ing condition — it would not be strange that,

INBREEDING. 99

incest being strenuously inhibited, close racial
affinities could long be maintained without
impairing the power of the race. And yet
granting all this, admitting the occasional
greatness of Hebrews, their proverbial success
in trade, the now rare physical beauty of the
women, the Jew is not a dazzling argument in
himself, as he now exists, for the practice of in-
and-in breeding.

Next to the Jews the Egyptian royal line of
the Ptolemies has done most service in the sup-
port of in-and-in breeding from a human stand-
point, but Francis Galton, the able investigator
of the phenomena of inheritance, handles the
Ptolemy claim rather roughly in his work on
" Hereditary Genius."* The first of the Ptole-
mies was the son of Philip II of Macedon by
Arsinoe, and consequently a half-brother of
Alexander the Great. Ptolemy Soter I " be-
came the first king of Egypt after Alexander's
death" and was highly rated by Alexander.
" He had all the qualities of an able and judi-
cious general. He was also given to literature
and patronized learned men. He had twelve
descendants who became kings of Egypt and
who were called Ptolemy, and who nearly all
resembled one another in features, in states-
man-like ability, in love of letters and in their
voluptuous dispositions. This race of Ptolemies

* "Hereditary Genius," pp. 150 to 153.

100 CATTLE-BREEDING.

is at first sight exceedingly interesting on ac-
count of the extraordinary number of their
close intermarriages. They were matched in-
and-in like prize cattle, but these near marriages
were unprolific; the inheritance mostly passed
through other wives. Indicating the Ptolemies
by numbers according to the order of their suc-
cession, II married his niece and afterward his
sister; IV his sister; VI and VII were brothers
and they both consecutively married the same
sister; VII also subsequently married his niece;
VIII married two of his own sisters consecu-
tively; XII and XIII were brothers, and both
consecutively married their sister, the famous
Cleopatra. Thus there are no less than nine
cases of close intermarriages distributed among
the thirteen Ptolemies [nine generations only].
However, when we put them as below in the
form of a genealogical tree we shall plainly
see that the main line of descent was un-
touched by these marriages, except in the two
cases of III and of VIII. The personal beauty
and vigor of Cleopatra, the last of the race,
cannot, therefore, be, justly quoted in disproof
of the evil effect of close breeding ; on the con-
trary, the result of Ptolemaic experience was
distinctly to show that intermarriages are fol-
lowed by sterility."

Nor is this all that our learned author might
have said. The ablest of the Ptolemies was.

INBREEDING. 101

undoubtedly Soter I, the first of them all, and
next to him Philadelphus, whose mother was
unrelated to his father. And the lovely and
vigorous queen who brought this incestuous
and ignoble line to a fitting close was barren
when married to her brothers and only bore
the sickly and short-lived Csesarion, the child of
CaBsar, in all her amours. Set over against this
record that of the outbred members of the
family. Philip II, of whom Cicero said in look-
ing back over his career, that he was "always
great" though cut off at the early age of forty-
seven by a violent death, links Alexander, who
died at thirty-two, and Ptolemy Soter I, his
sons, and Pyrrhus, his cousin, one of the great-
est generals and statesmen of antiquity, in a
relationship of vigor and ability which makes
the poor residuum of their noble blood to be
found in the Ptolemies no better than the lees
of the wine.

Outside of these notable cases, the verdict
of humanity is against the intermarriage of
near relations. I have seen in my own obser-
vation many cases in which it was unques-
tionably true that too close intermarriage had
resulted in physical decay in the offspring. I
have in mind at this moment as I write cases
of idiocy, consumption, scrofula, diminished
size and impaired vitality, infertility, and re-
duced, almost destroyed, fecundity, growing out

102 CATTLE-BREEDING.

of this cause. The voice of medical science
and human intelligence is clearly at one in
regarding close breeding, especially when so
close as to be properly within the definition of
in-and-in breeding, as highly mischievous.

But let us pass on to a department more
nearly connected with the subject of our par-
ticular study. A very noteworthy case of an
experiment with swine is recorded by Mr. John
Wright, a leading writer on agricultural topics.
Says he in the course of some remarks on
inbreeding: "In pigs the writer's experience
was considerable, inbreeding from three or four
sows at the same time, all descended from the
same parents, boar and sow; these were put to
the same boar for seven descents or genera-
tions; the result was that in many instances
they failed to breed, in others they bred few
that lived; many of them were idiots — had not
sense to suck, and when attempting to walk
they could not go straight. The last two sows
of the breed were sent to other boars and pro-
duced several litters of healthy pigs. In justice
to the advocates of the in-and-in principle, it
is but right to state that the best sow during
the seven generations was one of the last
descent. She was the only pig of that litter.
She would not breed to her sire, but bred to a
stranger in blood at the first trial. She pos-
sessed great substance and constitution and

INBREEDING. 103

was a very superior animal." It would seem
that this high character was secured at rather
a high cost. The only pig of a litter to begin
with; partly infertile — so much so that had not
the in-and-in system been abandoned precipi-
tately she would have been the last of her line;
a barren sow in all practical senses; the one
fine animal out of all that company of the
dead-born, the impotent, the idiotic, the halt
and infirm. Truly a costly beast to breed.

A recent writer in commenting on this case
advances the following ingenious theory*:
"That the procreative powers were not de-
stroyed, but remained latent, is shown by the
fact that the sows bred freely with the boars of
another family. With boars of their own blood
they could not be expected to breed, as the pow-
ers of fecundity in such case would be latent in
both male and female; but when they were
bred with animals in which the reproductive
function was not latent the defect was cor-
rected." Latent, or impaired almost to the de-
gree of total destruction, the case most admir-
ably illustrates the fact that Nature has placed
a barrier beyond which in-and-in breeding can-
not be carried. This case illustrates well some
of the most important facts of in-and-in breed-
ing. It shows absolutely the extreme tendency
to physical and mental decay; it shows this

* Prof. Manly Miles in "Stock-Breeding," page 169.

104 CATTLE-BREEDING.

tendency and it shows a large number of the
forms which this tendency will take. For in-
stance, decreased fecundity, impaired fertility,
(the difference between these should be kept
well in mind; the sow above named in her
failure to breed to a related boar showed im-
paired fertility; her dam when she produced
her, one pig at a litter, showed decreased fe-
cundity) disease of the procreative organs in
frequent births of dead young, transmission of
weak organisms seen in the idiocy and incapac-
ity of some of the young, and so on. Over against
these things are set the case of an extraordi-
narily superior animal in form and appearance.
These fine animals have been produced again
and again by such a course, but nearly always
at a cost analogous to that witnessed in the
case of this sow.

We have perhaps had enough examples to
see the theory and the experience of breeders
in applying in-and-in breeding. It may be
briefly summed up as follows:

The theory of in-and-in breeding rests first
on the view that the way to obtain the best
cattle is to select the best obtainable animals
and breed them and their offspring together
over and over again, thus maintaining their
excellencies free from the intermixture of any
less excellent blood, and making by constant
interfusion the blood of all the animals iden-

INBREEDING. 105

tical and so preventing the appearance of any
feature outside of the animals originally se-
lected; and second, that the in-and-in bred
animal is prepotent over any and every other.

This latter proposition has been questioned
by some as only true when the animal has
special vigor, though in the main it is probably
approximately true.

While recognizing the force of the claims
made for in-and-in breeding, some breeders
have been alarmed at the physiological dan-
gers besetting that course and have adopted a
modified view of the general theory generally
called "line breeding," a brief outline of which
will now be given.

LINE BREEDING.

THERE has been much discussion as to what
is meant exactly by 'line breeding." It is com-
paratively new as a word applied to a distinct
system of breeding, and it has acquired some-
thing of a special character, in addition to its
old general application, on account of its adop-
tion by certain breeders to describe their own
peculiar methods. It may, perhaps, be not in-
accurately defined as the process of breeding
within a few closely related stocks or families,
no animals being interbred which are not
closely connected in the general lines of their
blood, the idea being apparently that all the
animals so interbred are of the same "line"
of descent. This, if pressed to close accuracy,
would, of course, be the same as in-and-in
breeding. But by a little latitude of expres-
sion the "line" might be, and indeed has been,
so expanded as to include relationships more
distant than would properly be thought within
the true purview of in-and-in breeding.

Historically this practice is an offshoot from
the main stem of in-and-in breeding. It is now
a number of decades since the last successful
scientific breeder deserted the sinking ship of

(106)

LINE BREEDING. 107

continuous in-and-in breeding. On the heels
of that expiring system followed a practice
which some of its exponents sought to distinc-
tively designate as inbreeding, but this term
was not sufficiently differentiated from in-and-
in breeding (perhaps the practice described by
the two terms were none too separable to the
vulgar eye) to be generally understood as a
different practice, and these men, as they grew
more and more away from any general practice
of incestuous breeding, took up the term line
breeding as designating their method. The
actual affinities of "line breeding" are beyond
the power of human ingenuity to discover.
The process of defining the term has been a
perfect "open-entry," "go-as-you-please" con-
test, in which many have taken a part and
nearly all have desired an exclusive liberty of
action, ruling off all competitors. The reason
of this is not far to seek.

Beginning with any given pair of animals if
their produce be interbred and their produce
again, and the progeny should be numerous,
then after the third generation the crosses
would cease to be incestuous, but would con-
tinue to be "line bred." Now this is exactly
analogous to the case of the Jews, in which
in-and-in breeding early gave way to line-
breeding of this sort. As I understand the pro-
cess, this is, properly and logically speaking, the

108 CATTLE-BREEDING.

only true definition of line breeding. But as
this has been largely devised to fit actual cases
much deviation has occurred. Some have taken
their own herds at a given period and made
that a starting point and counted all as line
bred which showed no cross outside of the
animals thus started with. A well-known in-
stance of such a case is that of a number of
breeders who bred exclusively from the seven
families which were owned by Mr. Bates at the
later period of his life, admitting also such
outcrosses as Mr. Bates himself used on these
families.

The idea is from a narrow standpoint to breed
only to animals showing no cross outside of a
single family; from a latitudinarian point of
view the family may be represented by a dozen
or more families, a whole herd or any other
body. Perhaps to the uninitiated he who breeds
only to such cattle as are admitted to the herd
book would as properly be a line breeder if he
chose to take that as a basis. But he would
probably be quickly convinced of the fact that
he was uninitiated. It is not included in the
definition, but it is nevertheless true that the
basis of a system of line breeding ought to be
small enough to give the line breeder a " cor-
ner" in the stock. An unprolific family is thus
the chosen ground of most line breeders. If
the family become too prolific it would be soon

LINE BREEDING. 109

out of all control. Its kinship to in-and-in
breeding thus becomes more noticeable; in-
deed, it is perhaps not too much to say that it
is a modified form of that practice, and that
most of those who practice it are in more or
less close sympathy with the theory of in-and-
in breeding, and have only departed from it
just so far as they were driven by the fears of
physical decay.

The aim of line breeding, as has already been
pointed out by implication, is to secure and
maintain a high degree of identity of blood,
the object being to obtain as nearly as possible
exact uniformity in the herd. It is quite pos-
sible to attain a most perfect conformity of
type in this way. Herds long bred on this
principle become more and more reduced to a
single type. I say reduced advisedly, and here
lies one of the dangers of the method. A com-
mon type is not undesirable, indeed it is often
highly desirable. But it is only desirable when
it is a superior type and the cattle are elevated
to it. Great improvement has only been at-
tained by the adoption by some skillful breeder
of some high ideal type and the use of every
means in man's power to raise the stock bred
to that type. We have seen that changed con-
ditions of life, especially excessive increase of
nutrition, sometimes inbreeding, as in the case
of the Longhorn bull Shakespeare, would pro-

110 CATTLE-BREEDING.

duce variations for the wide-awake breeder
to seize and Hx by every means in his power,
and so bring his stock to a type of great even-
ness by raising them to this ideal standard.
This can only be done by infinite labor and
pains. Nature never stands still ; her laws re-
quire progress or decay will ensue. So if man
supinely contents nimself with any already at-
tained standard and lets the work of man go on
simply in an effort to fix without improvement,
deterioration is almost inevitably the conse-
quence. Every fault will fix itself. Faults
and defects in forms and organisms are nearly
always more surely reproduced than good qual-
ities. Cattle thus bred commonly show a de-
terioration in size and vigor most of all. If
the lines are drawn very close and narrow the
same faults as are to be found with in-and-in
breeding, in a somewhat less degree, are ob-
served ; and last, but by no means least, when
the processes of fixing the type and deteriorat-
ing the animals have gone forward long, judi-
cious outcrosses do not rapidly overcome the
inbred evils.

I know an instance under my own observa-
tion of a splendid herd of excellently bred cat-
tle in which a system of close line breeding
has after some twenty years of experiment,
under the supervision of good judges of cattle,

LINE BREEDING. Ill

steadily fixed two most deplorable bad qualities
on nearly every animal in the herd.

This method is often exceedingly tempting,
and a little specions reasoning often makes the
temptation irresistible. Given a fine herd to
begin with and these well bred, and the owner
often thinks that he would like to breed just
these cattle and no others ; that he would
like to make of them a race of cattle of high
reputation and out of them win for himself
present and posthumous fame as a great
breeder. Day dreams like these are easily con-
jured up and are the common joy of all times
and all people. We have all heard the ori-
ental story of the idle youth whose father died
and left him a small sum of money with which
he determined to make a mercantile venture,
and invested the whole of it in glassware and
took his place in the market with his wares.
Seized with a sudden ambition to succeed in
his new way of life he pictured to himself a
rosy future as a successful merchant. He saw
his little patrimony increase vastly through
constant and rapid turning over. He saw him-
self ere long a merchant prince and at last
even called to the high honor of marrying the
Sultan's daughter. Then he thought how he
would treat her, how scornfully, how disdain-
fully, and finally would spurn her from him as
she embraced his knees seekin his favor. But

112 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the reverie became too real for his welfare. In
the moment of his fancied pride he put his
thought into action and threw out his foot as
if to spurn the princess — really to strike the
basket which contained the hopes of all his
glorious future, and to overturn it with its
fragile burden in a mass of splintered crystal
on the ground. All might have come true if
—the ever-fatal if ; how often it intrudes it-
self into the affairs of men !

The work often goes on with the utmost
success for a time and entices with such allure-
ments as a taste of success is sure to hold out.
The danger never lies in the beginning, but in
the persisting in such a course.

It is sometimes argued with no little show of
plausibility that the deterioration and physical
decay incident to very close and long-continued
line breeding does not result from the close
breeding but from an accidental constant re-
production of a defective or diseased feature
overlooked by the breeder. Hence that such
cases are the result of the carelessness of the
breeder in overlooking some such defect rather
than in any actual positive injury coming from
line breeding. But as all animals possess de-
fects of one kind or another, close line breed-
ing must tend to fix them ineradicably on the
offspring. It becomes just as needful then to
resort to fresh outcrosses to counteract this as

LINE BREEDING. 113

it is under the view that close interbreeding of
the same family for generations leads to a pos-
itive evil. It after all matters little whether
one perishes of a negative or a positive evil.

A recent writer* would seem to make the
lines so narrow as to claim an exclusive right
for cattle in-and-in or line bred to the term
" high bred." Says he: "High breeding implies
a careful selection of breeding animals within
the limits of a family with reference to a par-
ticular type and regardless of relationships.
High-bred animals are not necessarily in-and-
in bred, although from the system of selection
practiced they must be closely bred to a greater
or less extent." Surely there are many very
high bred animals which have been bred other-
wise than "within the limits of a family/' and
yet some writers and breeders would really
seem to regard "close relationships" —I quote
from the author just cited — as "the necessary
incidents of their practice," although some
admit that as to the early improvers "close
breeding with them was but a means of im-
provement and not an end that was thought
to be desirable in itself." Such a distinction,
however true originally, can seldom be main-
tained long in practice, especially if that prac-
tice is common to a large number of men. It
is very easy to mistake an incident or concom-

* Miles, " Stock-Breeding," p. 139.

114 CATTLE-BREEDING.

itant for the efficient cause. And it is not to
be denied that however much the early im-
provers were wanting in anything like a su-
perstitious reverence for the fetich of close
relationship, some who have come after them
have not wanted a belief that positive virtue
dwelt in and emanated from long-continued
breeding within the limits of incest, or at least
of a single family's lines.

How much the line theory is an outgrowth
of the in-and-in breeding idea may be seen by
a comparison of some early definitions of in-
and-in breeding with that now most approved,
viz.: that in-and-in breeding is breeding within
the limits of what is known as incest in man;
is, in fine, " incestuous breeding." Thus Youatt
says that it is uthe breeding from close affini-
ties/' which certainly embraces line breeding.
"Johnson's Farmers' Cyclopedia" says it is
the "breeding from close relations." Another
writer defines it as "breeding from the same
family, or putting animals of the nearest rela-
tionship together." All of these read more like
definitions of line breeding than of in-and-in
breeding.

Haply we have a most admirable illustration
of this method furnished us on a large scale, and
in a condition as little artificial and as near to
a state of nature as possible in the white, so-
called wild cattle of England, which are more

LINE BREEDING. 115

truly half wild. A brief inquiry into their his-
tory, circumstances and condition, will be in-
structive in this connection, and I shall give a
resume closely following Mr. Darwin's account,
of which the following is a close paraphrase
where it is not verbally quoted: . „

Three forms or species of Bos, originally inhabitants of Europe,
have been domesticated. Bos primigenius existed as a wild animal
in Csesar's time and is now semi-wild, though much degenerated in
size in the park of Chillingham; the Chillingham cattle are less
altered from the true primigenius type than any other known breed.
The park is so ancient that it is referred to in a record of the year
1220. The cattle in their instincts and habits are truly wild. They
are white, with the inside of the ears reddish brown, eyes rimmed
with black, muzzles brown, hoofs black, and horns white, tipped with
black. Within a period of thirty-three years about a dozen calves
were born with " brown or blue spots upon the cheeks or necks; but
these, together with any defective animals, were always destroyed."
The wild white cattle in the Duke of Hamilton's park, where I have
heard of the birth of a black calf, are said by Lord Tankerville to
be inferior to those at Chillingham. The cattle kept until the year
1780 by the Duke of Queensbury, but now extinct, had their ears,
muzzles, and orbit of the eyes black. Those which have existed
from time immemorial at Chartley closely resemble the cattle at
Chillingham, but are larger with some small difference in the color
of the ears. " They frequently tend to become entirely black; and a
singular superstition prevails in the vicinity that when a black calf
is born some calamity impends over the noble house of Ferrers. All
the black calves are destroyed." The cattle at Burton Constable in
Yorkshire, now extinct, had ears, muzzle, and the tip of the tail
black. Those at Gisburne, also in Yorkshire, are said by Bewick to
have been sometimes without dark muzzles, with the inside alone of
the ears brown; and they are elsewhere said to have been low in
stature and hornless. The several above specified differences in the
park cattle, slight though they be, are worth recording, as they show
that animals living nearly in a state of nature and exposed to nearly
uniform conditions if not allowed to roam freely and to cross with
other herds do not keep as uniform as truly wild animals. For the
preservation of a uniform character, even within the same park, a
certain degree of selection — that is, the destruction of the dark-
colored calves— is apparently necessary.

116 CATTLE-BREEDING.

The cattle in all the parks are white, but from the occasional ap-
pearance of dark-colored calves it is extremely doubtful whether the
aboriginal Bos primigenius was white. The primeval forest for-
merly extended across the whole country from Chillingham to Ham-
ilton, and Sir Walter Scott used to maintain that the cattle still
maintained in these two parks, at the two extremities of the forest,
were remnants of its original inhabitants, and this view certainly
seems probable.

These half -wild cattle, which have thus been kept in British parks
probably for four or five hundred years, or even for a longer period,
have been advanced by Culley and others as a case of long- continued
interbreeding within the limits of the same herd without any con-
sequent injury. With respect to the cattle at Chillingham the late
Lord Tankerville owned that they were bad breeders. The agent,
Mr. Hardy, estimates (in a letter to me [Mr. Darwin] dated May,
1861) that in the herd of about fifty the average number annually
slaughtered, killed by fighting, and dying, is about ten, or one in
five. As the herd is kept up to nearly the same average number the
annual rate of increase must be likewise about one in five. The
bulls, I may add, engage in furious battles, of which battles the
present Lord Tankerville has given me a graphic description, so that
there will always be vigorous selection of the most vigorous males.
I procured in 1855 from Mr. D. Gardner, agent to the Duke of Ham-
ilton, the following account of the wild cattle kept in the Duke's
park in Lanarkshire, which is about two hundred acres in extent:
The number of cattle varies from sixty-five to eighty, and the num-
ber annually killed (I presume by all causes) is from eight to ten, so
that the annual rate of increase can hardly be more than one in six.
Now in South America, where the herds are half -wild and therefore
offer a nearly fair standard of comparison, according to Azara the
natural increase of the cattle on an estancia is from one-third to
one-fourth of the total number, or one in between three and four;
and this no doubt applies to adult animals fit for consumption.
Hence, the half-wild British cattle which have long interbred within
the limits of the same herd are relatively far less fertile. Although
in an unenclosed country like Paraguay there must be some crossing
between the different herds, yet even there the inhabitants believe
that the occasional introduction of animals from distant localities
is necessary to prevent "degeneration in size and diminution of fer-
tility." The decrease in size from ancient times in the Chillingham
and Hamilton cattle must have been prodigious, for Prof. Riitimeyer
has shown that they are almost certainly the descendants of the gi-
gantic Bos primigenius. No doubt this decrease in size may be

LINE BREEDING. 117

largely attributed to less favorable conditions of life; yet animals
roaming over large parks and fed during severe winters can hardly
be considered as placed under very unfavorable conditions.

Another close student of English cattle, Mr.
H. H. Dixon, who contributed so many delight-
ful articles to the press over the signature of
"The Druid/' gives some corroborative state-
ments in regard to the Chillingham cattle in
"Saddle and Sirloin." Among other things he
says: "The steers weigh * * * from forty
stone to fifty stone of fourteen pounds." That
is from five hundred and sixty to seven hun-
dred pounds, from which it is very plain that
Mr. Darwin has not exaggerated the great de-
terioration in size. Prof. Miles, who is an ad-
vocate of close breeding, cites Mr. Darwin's
account of the Chillingham cattle and says:
"When I saw the herd in 1874 it numbered
about sixty of all ages and sexes. Among
them were several steers. The park-keeper
informed me that they produced from ten
to twelve calves annually, which agrees
closely with Mr. Darwin's estimate [a little
lower, it will be observed]. They are certainly
not very prolific, yet the number of calves is,
perhaps, as great as could be expected under
the conditions in which they are placed. They
exhibited no indications of degeneracy or lack
of constitutional vigor, and I was assured that
they were both healthy and hardy. After
several hundred years of close breeding they

118 CATTLE-BREEDING.

are apparently as robust as animals that have
frequently received infusions of 'new blood'
by crossing."

We see that in the period between 1861 to
1874 there had been a slight decline in fecun-
dity, and in the list Mr. Darwin gives he enu-
merates several which had recently existed
but had become extinct. Not a great many
years ago there were seven prominent herds of
these well-known cattle, of which more than
half have become extinct, one in very recent
years, and only two show any vigor or prospect
of long remaining as memorials of the distant
past ; and one of these, if I am not mistaken,
is of the polled variety.

I think it is easy to read between the lines
of all descriptions of these wild or half-wild
cattle a warning against true and long-con-
tinued line breeding. The conditions under
which they have lived would seem to be the
most favorable as far as the individual goes
for maintaining the physical strength and
vigor. The dangers and vicissitudes of a
wholly wild life are averted, and while protec-
tion and abundant food are given none of the
more enervating influences of domesticated
existence are introduced. Add to these the
selection of the vigorous males, already men-
tioned in Mr. Darwin's account, and it is suffi-
ciently obvious that the conditions of their

LINE BREEDING.

119

life have been by no means unfavorable, and
yet decline and extinction have followed. Is
not the question whether it was or was not
brought about by close line breeding forced
upon us ? The answer is as easy given as the
question is asked, though many may not see
the facts in the same light as I do.

NATURAL BREEDING.

WE now come to what I call "natural breed-
ing." I have so called it for want of a more ac-
curate term wherewith to describe it. It has
been called by some "outcrossing," by others
"mixed breeding"; but both of these terms are
far too narrow and inadequate for us to adopt.
By natural breeding I mean breeding with the
sole object of securing the best possible offspring.
Outcrossing and mixed breeding alike fetter
us to the idea of families and blood lines. We
can only outcross when we have a family line
to supply the "in" of which the "out " is the
opposite idea. So we can only "mix" when we
have some definite quantities to mix, as fam-
ilies, etc. In both of these terms an accident
of the method pursued has been confounded
with the essence and a name has resulted
which is at once a misnomer and misleading.

The great central idea of the theory of nat-
ural breeding is that of selection — a selection
akin to natural selection, whose outcome is the
survival of the fittest, but akin to it in just the
same way that instinct is akin to reason. Na-
ture tends to preserve an average; so natural
selection in all normal cases tends to maintain

(120)

NATURAL BREEDING. 121

a dead level. Man, when he applies one of Na-
ture's lessons, strives at once to eliminate all
but those factors and influences which are
above the average. Hence man's work tends
always to destroy the average and results in
raising it if intelligently applied, or lowering it
if unwisely exerted. Instead of concentrating
the mind on family lines the view becomes
world-wide, one analogy won from Nature's
laws being strictly followed up, namely, the
close continuance within the bounds of the
species or variety which we have chosen for
our field.

Hence the great consideration is how to im-
prove the breed, and the individual being the
sole unit, how to improve the individual. The
only road to the general improvement of the
breed lies too plainly through special improve-
ment of the individual to deserve discussion.
Hence it is that "individual merit" may be
said to be the great watchword of this method
of natural breeding. We may therefore de-
fine natural breeding as that method which
aims to produce the best animals by careful
selection and interbreeding of the best obtain-
able animals.

That this idea is far broader than anything
which can be defined as outcrossing or mixed
breeding must be obvious to everyone. We
shall see as we advance, however, in the dis-

122 CATTLE-BREEDING.

cussion of the subject that the concepts repre-
sented by those terms form a part of the scheme
of natural breeding. In fine, that outcrosses
are the rule in natural breeding.

Two or three antecedent propositions are
important to an intelligent comprehension of
the aims of this method. In the first place it
should be clearly understood that the great aim
of breeding is to produce animals; secondly,
animals of as high practical value for the
actual uses of man's consumption as possible;
thirdly, that where a standard of excellence
has already been attained by earlier breeders
and improvers this standard should be care-
fully maintained; and fourthly, that wherever
and whenever it may be possible this standard
should be advanced and the breed improved.
These propositions, stated in a negative way,
may be said to be: first, everything tending to
impair the constitutions, and particularly the
procreative organs, is to be avoided; secondly,
the cattle are not to be bred for pedigree or to
other purely artificial standards; thirdly, that
neglect of the useful qualities already obtained
in the cattle is ethically wrong, and to permit
such qualities to be atrophied or decreased by
non-use condemnable; and fourthly, that a man
who breeds valuable varieties of stock should
never forget that they are a trust committed to
his charge and that a neglect of any opportu-

NATURAL BREEDING. 123

nity to improve on them is to prove false to a
high trust.

It needs no argument to convince any mat-
ter-of-fact man who has no preconceived hostile
views that the way to obtain the best results is
to seek, wherever they are to be found, the best
individual animals. Were this not so then the
whole idea embraced in the great law that like
produces like would be a delusion. Nor is
there any other method to be derived from that
law.

There is nothing in this view at all antag-
onistic to the theory which maintains the
advantage of in-and-in breeding under excep-
tional circumstances. If such a proceeding be
demanded in order to fix a specially desirable
quality this method of breeding would favor
it. It advocates the choice of the best to be
had. If these "best" are few they must be in-
and-in bred till they are numerous enough
to allow wider latitude. It does, indeed, hold
that, in-and-in breeding being apparently con-
trary to the laws of physiology and injurious
to the produce of animals so in-and-in bred,
Should never be indulged in except with the
utmost caution, and never persisted in one
moment longer than demanded by the special
conditions of each case. Just as some poisons
of the deadliest nature may be taken with im-
punity when administered in small quantities

124 CATTLE-BREEDING.

to the great benefit and advantage of the sick,
so in-and-in breeding may be resorted to in
order to produce a desired result which can
only be so attained, but always under the ex-
ercise of the highest degree of care and the
most watchful caution that like the cases of
cumulative action of certain poisons a similar
effect be not here produced.

The principal reason, then, why this method
of breeding is one of constant and repeated
outcrosses is not so much that there is thought
to be any great virtue in an outcross as that
close breeding is avoided because it threatens
a positive evil. To avoid in-and-in breeding is
to breed more or less out-and-out. But it must
not be thought that this is the converse of the
course sometimes advocated by extreme in-
and-in breeding, namely: that an inbred animal,
though never so bad, is yet preferable for breed-
ing to animals of the same family line to a
complete stranger in blood, however excellent.
This makes a distinct virtue of the fact of the
near relationship. Here there is no such idea.
The fact that an animal is unrelated is chiefly
negative. If he is bad shun him. The deter-
mining quantity is individual excellence. If
the choice lies between a poor and unrelated
animal and a superior and closely-related one,
the latter should be selected. There are no
fetiches in this method. The aim is excellence ;

NATURAL BREEDING. 125

the law of Nature is that excellence can only
spring from antecedent excellence; consequent-
ly we arrive at the rule of practice — that no in-
ferior animal should ever be used. Shunning
in-and-in breeding as a fertile cause of deteri-
oration and decay, it must be clearly seen that
the necessity which would compel the breeder
to use an animal to breed from which was
closely akin to the animals crossed with it
must be stringent and inevitable.

Is there, then, no advantage of a positive
kind to be derived from outcrosses ? Certainly
there is. What has already been said was for
the purpose of showing that there was no such
claim made for an outcross as has sometimes
been made for an incross. But fresh foreign
blood, if itself healthy and vigorous, means an
access of vigor to a family. Why this is so is
perhaps not susceptible of a very clear expla-
nation. It is like many another fact in natural
history — a fact of observation. Like prepotency
and atavism, it is well established as a phenom-
enon the explanation of which we are as yet
unacquainted with. The effect of a cross of
very distant blood is sometimes very notable.
Animals brought from distant lands and bred
together often exhibit remarkable increase of
vigor. Increased vigor has great practical value
for the cattle-breeder, as some of its most no-
table manifestations are increased fecundity,

126 CATTLE-BREEDING.

prolonged life and period of production, im-
proved flesh and milk-making powers, and often
highly-marked prepotency.

A recent writer on the theory of breeding
says, in summarizing his remarks on this sub-
ject : "There is no one point on which practical
breeders, as well as scientists, are more per-
fectly agreed than that the ultimate tendency
of breeding in-and-in is injurious ; that when
carried to excess it will always result in a loss
of constitutional vigor in the produce ; that
while its tendency may be in the direction of
fineness of texture, lightness of bone, smooth-
ness, evenness, and polish, it is invariably at
the expense of robustness, strength, vigor, and
power. On the other hand, scientists, as well
as practical breeders, with perhaps equal unan-
imity concur in the belief that a cross in the
blood usually gives increased size and vigor to
the produce, and that cross-breeding, or pair-
ing of animals of distant varieties, usually re-
sults in increased fertility."

Mr. Darwin is very decided in his view that
crosses of unrelated blood are in themselves of
high value. He says, for example : "The gain
in constitutional vigor derived from an occa-
sional cross between individuals of the same
variety, but belonging to distinct families, has
not been so largely or so frequently discussed
as have the evil effects of too close interbreed-

NATURAL BREEDING. 127

ing; but the former point is the more impor-
tant of the two, inasmuch as the evidence is
more decisive. The evil results from close inter-
breeding are difficult to detect, for they accu-
mulate slowly and differ much in degree with
different species ; while the good effects which
almost invariably follow a cross are from the
first manifest." And again Mr. Darwin says:
"The benefit from a cross, even when there
has not been any very close interbreeding, is
almost invariably at once conspicuous. * * *
That evil directly follows from any degree of
close interbreeding has been denied by many
persons, but rarely by any practical breeder ;
and never, so far as I know, by one who has
largely bred animals which propagate their
kind quickly. * * * Almost all men who
have bred many kinds of animals, and have
written on the subject, such as Sir J. Sebright,
Andrew Knight, etc., have expressed the
strongest conviction on the impossibility of
long -continued close interbreeding. Those
who have compiled books on agriculture and
have associated much with breeders, such as
the sagacious Youatt, Low, etc., have strpngly
declared their opinion to the same effect. Pros-
per Lucas, trusting largely to French authori-
ties, has come to a similar conclusion. The
distinguished German agriculturist Hermann
von Nathusius, who has written the most able

128 CATTLE-BREEDING.

treatise on this subject which I have met with,
concurs." And again he says, in summing up
his observations on this subject: " Finally, when
we consider the various facts now given which
plainly show that good follows from crossing
[the word is here used with reference to cross-
ing families and also 'distinct varieties'], and
less plainly that evil follows from close inter-
breeding, and when we bear in mind that
throughout the whole organic world elaborate
provision has been made for the occasional
union of distinct individuals, the existence of a
great law of Nature is, if not proved, at least
rendered in the highest degree- probable—
namely, that the crossing of animals and plants
which are not closely related to each other is
highly beneficial, or even necessary, and that
interbreeding prolonged during many genera-
tions is highly injurious."

In the course of a lengthy and able exami-
nation of this subject, and the facts illustrative
of it, Mr. Darwin shows the tremendous influ-
ence of a cross in such directions as increased
fruitfulness upon deeply inbred stock. In our
present inquiry we are considering the case of
a constant adherence to a system of outcrosses
—of crosses chosen for merit simply and for
the negative quality of non-relation — conse-
quently the sudden and deep impression he
alludes to is scarcely to be expected. The

NATURAL BREEDING. 129

reason of lliis lies on the surface. No decay,
no loss of constitutional vigor having occurred,
there is no negative force to be overcome, no
evil to be rectified. By careful selection the
breed has been kept on the stretch, and gen-
eration by generation maintained by correct
breeding and feeding up to the highest attain-
able standard. A bull of fresh blood put on
a herd of cows so bred would not be a new
element in. a mass made up of a number of
infusions of a single old strain, but every line
would stand for blood as fresh as his own.
Where cattle are long bred in a single locality,
even in the most open way, there is a tendency
to assume a local type, and here we have a
good opportunity of witnessing the influence
of a totally new cross. . Thus an imported bull
from England will sometimes infuse into our
American stocks the same kind of new life
which is aroused in closely-bred stocks by the
introduction of a foreign strain.

I was much struck by a recent observation
of this fact by a contemporary writer in En-
gland a few months ago. In the course of a
discussion of the relative merits of English-
bred and American-bred Short-horns he ob-
served that in his judgment the American
descendants of English stock had not so much
deteriorated (as was maintained by another
writer) from the ancestral standard as departed

130 CATTLE-BREEDING.

from it. He esteemed them quite as good beef
cattle in all, or nearly all, respects, but he
thought that the type was a very different one.
Most of -the cattle he had seen belonged to one
family, or more properly, group of families,
which had been so interbred as to be almost
one. Almost everyone conversant with Amer-
ican Short-horns remembered that these ani-
mals were, and their descendants are, of a
well-marked type, and that one in a measure
peculiar to them ; another and equally distinct
type being cultivated by other breeders; and it
also would have almost certainly struck this
English critic as a departure from the English
type. I should have described both of these
and two or three well-marked English types of
today, as well as the clearly-defined Aberdeen
Scotch, not so much as departures from an arch-
aic type as equally local special developments
of that type. I am inclined to think that there
are more points of resemblance in each of these
types to the old parent form, and each would
be measured more satisfactorily by the old
standard than by that of any of its contempo-
rary standards. This has simply resulted from
the nearly inevitable bending to surroundings.
It is under the rule of Nature harder to exactly
maintain any given form than to do anything
else. Progress or decline is the motto written
on all artificially modified forms. So even in

NATURAL BREEDING. 131

the struggle to simply hold what has been
gained, new elements intrude and local modi-
fications arise and become, often unconsciously,
deeply set in the animal type.

Mark the close analogy of all of these in-
stances to the gardener's experience in secur-
ing desirable variations in his plants: trans-
plantation, rich soils, oft-repeated changes,
frequent cross fertilization, temporary close
fertilization when the desired variety is se-
cured, then cross fertilization with a degree of
frequency corresponding to the natural habit
of the plant. The analogy is striking and the
principle is probably universal.

A gentleman who was once a large cattle-
breeder and always a strong advocate of in-
and-in breeding in cattle, said to me recently
that a cross of Cruickshank bulls on the Eose
of Sharons was remarkably successful. It was
very contrary to his natural view, but in per-
fect accord with the best experience of scien-
tists and breeders. In a long acquaintance with
cattle-breeding and familiarity with the meth-
ods pursued in many herds, I have seen much
which has led me to a thorough persuasion
that the correct system was to breed the best
to the best, and to avoid close affinities. Close
study of the results in the show-ring lead me
to the conclusion that while an occasional ani-
mal of great merit is found to.be the result of

132 CATTLE-BREEDING.

in-and-in breeding, that a large proportion of
winners are descended from winners, particu-
larly on the sire side, and mainly out of fami-
lies of cattle bred in a promiscuous manner.
It would be easy to run over the experience of
a life-time and bring forth a great number of
instances to confirm this position; but a great
mass of illustration, as it cannot by the neces-
sity of the case reach demonstration by mere
weight of quantity, however great, is of no
value, and I shall therefore only educe a few
notable and representative examples. One of
the most remarkable animals I ever owned or
saw was Loudon Duchess 2d. Her career in
the show-ring was extraordinary and almost
without a reverse, although exhibited from the
time she was a calf at many fairs, both in Ken-
tucky and several other States, during which
time she bred regularly and produced calves of
the highest class in every instance, her second
and third calves being the scarcely less distin-
guished show-yard winners Loudon Duchess
4th and Loudon Duke 6th, both of which were
esteemed by some excellent judges as of supe-
rior excellence to their dam. Loudon Duchess
4th, indeed, triumphed over perhaps the finest
ring of females I ever saw gotten together,
consisting of fifty-six head, at the Bourbon
Co. (Ky.) Fair in the autumn of 1870, when she
was a yearling. These calves were by Musca-

NATURAL BREEDING.

138

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134 CATTLE-BREEDING.

can but be struck by the very miscellaneous
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NATURAL BREEDING. 135

result is an increase of variety in the blood.
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136 CATTLE-BREEDING.

brought as great diversity to their offspring as
did Muscatoon.

We find another notable example in Fanny
Forester, one of the most superior animals that
I ever saw, and looked upon wherever she went
in a long and bright career as a show cow as a
phenomenon of bovine beauty. She was as
nearly perfect of her type, which was some-
what small, especially in contrast with some of
the massive specimens of the Scotch breeders'
handicraft now so much esteemed, as it was
possible for her to be, and I believe met no
serious rival in the show-yard of her own age
except London Duchess 4th. Her pedigree
shows most miscellaneous breeding and a to-
tal neglect of any idea but getting good ani-
nlals to breed together in the making of each
successive cross.

It is of course impossible to reach any general
rule from so slender a basis of particulars ; nor
was anything farther from my intention in cit-
ing them. They are, however, typical instances
out of many that have come under my indi-
vidual notice, and they may serve some good
purpose as a counter-agent to the cases some-
times cited where a very fine beast has been
produced by a system of in-and-in breeding.
The narrow basis of generalizations of the
boldest sorts upon single instances of close in-
breeding is something only less surprising than

NATURAL BREEDING. 137

the readiness with which such generalizations
are received as logical and just inferences from
the facts, and adopted as safe foundations for
practice and experiment.

These cases are mere samples. It is not from
them but from a careful and long-continued
observation of the practice of many breeders,
as well as my own long and wide experience,
that I conclude that they are typical and are
representative not merely of a class but of a
large class, and that that class, while showing
in itself varying degrees, exhibits at the same
time a general unity, and is so large and so
homogeneous as to almost unavoidably lead us
to accept it as the ordinary case and to con-
clude that the tendency running through it is
the rule ; so that I do not think I am wide of
the mark when I say that out of every ten cel-
ebrated prize-winners in recent years nine have
been miscellaneously bred.

And it is further to be observed how pre-
potency runs with the vigor of the new blood
which is introduced by outcrosses. One of the
chief claims that have been made for the in-
and-iii method is the great influence that in-
and-in bred cattle have in their prepotency
over other cattle. But I have found that out-
bred cattle often show as high a degree of pre-
potency as those most deeply inbred. I have
already instanced the case of Muscatoon, very

138

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NATURAL BREEDING. 139

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140 CATTLE-BKEEDING.

nearly the greatest breeding bull I have ever
known, and a great prize-winner. Another in-
stance of the same qualities is to be found in
Baron Butterfly, whose extended pedigree is
also given. It will be noticed that in the 128
parts that may be seen from this diagram 38
are Duchess, 25 Oxford, 16 Booth, 5 Bates
Red Eose, 1 Wild Eyes, 1 Belvedere, 9 Whita-
ker, 5 Princess, 4 Mason, 4 Barmpton Eose (the
family from which he takes his family name),
2 Knightley, and the remaining 18 parts " scat-
tering" among about as many families. This
is surely pretty miscellaneous, as will be more
fully realized by a glance at the extended ped-
igree. The same can be said of all the bulls
spoken of in the chapter on prepotency as hav-
ing exercised so great an influence in moulding
my father's and .my herd on account of their
prepotency. Oliver, Goldfinder, Eenick, Young
Comet Halley, Cossack, as well as Muscatoon
and Baron Butterfly, were full of variety in the
families represented in them.

Among the bulls that have won very wide
reputation of late years few have attracted so
much attention as Mr. Cruickshank's celebrated
sire Champion of England and Mr. Linton's Sir
Arthur Ingram and Lord Irwin, and the mis-
cellaneous character of their pedigrees is of the
most obvious kind.

Even such breeders as had the most complete

NATURAL BREEDING. 141

faith in the in-and-in method have given ex-
pression to the opinion that unless in the hands
of very carefnl and wise men there was ranch
danger in long-continued close breeding. And
it is certainly very plain that to the ordinary
breeder who breeds cattle as a practical busi-
ness, quite apart from any special fancy, reg-
ular breeding of strong, healthy stock, for
which a demand at the full market price can
be safely relied on, is the desirable course. A
few men for fancy and fashion sake may prefer
to breed animals uncertain and irregular as
breeders, short-lived and delicate in constitu-
tion, producing many dead-born and sickly
calves, for the sake of now and again one of
extraordinary excellence which, perchance, may
never produce a calf to perpetuate her own
phenomenal excellence.

This method may therefore be safely com-
mended as the safe course to all. From it the
most satisfaction and most even results will be
secured, and without any risk of doing injury
to the breed of cattle which is cultivated. Those
who desire to experiment and to breed for a
fancy market, wholly dependent upon tempo-
rary and extremely evanescent fashions, may
be trusted to find an agreeable road and to
walk in it without very much regard to any
one else's ideas or opinions, however well
founded. But to the young and inexperienced,

142 CATTLE-BREEDING.

to the practical farmer, and the seeker for safe
and plain methods, the system of natural breed-
ing will continue in the future to hold the first
place as it has in the past, supported as it is by
the judgment of nearly all intelligent writers
and all successful breeders, except a few whose
life and self-interests were committed for spe-
cial reasons to the other course. We will see
in the next chapter wliat some of the great
breeders have learned in regard to in-and-in
and natural breeding.

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY ON BREEDING
METHODS.

A DISCUSSION of broad, general principles,
however widely illustrated, wants something
of completeness, especially where the subject
under consideration is one of immediate prac-
tical application. The individual propositions
may stand out singly with clearness and force;
but the question not unnaturally arises as to how
they harmonize, and whether they unite and
form a complete system. To be able, then, to
give something like a connected account of the
experience of some notable practitioners in any
given sphere through a series of years will often
throw a fullness of light upon the subject which
cannot be obtained in any other way. That it
is a difficult task to present in this way the life-
work of any man or body of men is well recog-
nized. It is necessary not merely to present
the facts — the skeleton of the body of truth we
essay to know — but to clothe them with the
motives and purposes on the one hand, and the
results 011 the other, which make the man's
life-work a living, organic whole. Under any
case the task is a difficult one. Where the facts,
so far from being "so plain that he who runs

(143)

144 CATTLE-BREEDING.

may read," are controverted and denied, and
the principles which may or may not have
governed and controlled the actions, are the
battle-ground of warring factions, then the task
becomes ten times more difficult, and the most
fair-minded and painstaking account is fre-
quently assailed by partisans of one or both
views. Yet these life stories are too valuable
to be neglected. Experience has from imme-
morial days been one of the great guide-posts
erected on the way through life — the experi-
ence, not only of each man for the better guid-
ance of his own future, but of each man, also,
for the aid of every other man who fares that
way. What we can glean from the trials of
other breeders in pursuit of the true method
of breeding cannot but prove of value to us,
then, and approaching it in the attitude of real
seekers after truth we may, perchance, be vouch-
safed a glimpse that may be of some value to
all who would learn the lesson of their lives.

We have seen how Robert Bakewell struck
out a new line in breeding methods, and with
what notable success he met at the outset.
His reputation was bruited abroad, and many
enterprising men engaged in breeding various
kinds of stock, following in his footsteps, began
to make trial of his methods. Before Bakewell
improved the Longhorns they appear to have
been very generally regarded as distinctly in-

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 145

ferior to the breed most commonly cultivated
in Yorkshire and Durham which we know as
the Short-horn or Durham, and which was then
most commonly spoken of as the Teeswater or
Holderness breed, from two of the localities
in which it was largely bred. We have seen
already that the celebrated Longhorn bull
Shakespeare was described by a great admirer
of that breed as very closely resembling an
inferior Holderness bull. This breed — for, in-
deed, it seems to have possessed for many gen-
erations previous to this time a well-defined
breed type — was bred with care and success by
many men of the best character in the North
of England, and was already highly valued for
its qualities of beef and milk production, when,
in the last decade of the eighteenth century, a
number of breeders began to apply to them the
Bakewell methods. Among these breeders the
brothers Robert and Charles Colling have won
the place of the greatest fame, owing to their
active interest in the new methods, their con-
fidence in themselves and in their cattle, their
rare capacity for exploiting what they were
doing, the real excellence of their results, arid,
perhaps quite as much as anything else, to the
men into whose hands their cattle passed and
who carried on most successfully the work of
breeding, and not less that of exploitation in
a manner and to a degree that would have

10

146 CATTLE-BREEDING.

refreshed the soul of Charles Colling could
he have returned to these terrestrial scenes.
Scarcely -less able, and scarcely less successful
were a number of others. Charles Colling
seems to have regarded the cow Lady Maynarcl,
which he purchased of Mr. Maynard of Ery-
holme, as unsurpassed by any product of his
own long life as a breeder, but for our purpose
the Collings stand out most strikingly; indeed
they fairly accomplished more than all their
contemporaries, and their just meed of praise
is a large one. Shortly after the year 1780
they began to breed independently, having
been raised under the shadow of the best of
the old Short-horn traditions on their father's
farm. They early adopted the Bakewell meth-
ods, and, Charles Colling having acquired
Hubback, the corner-stone of the improved
Short-horn breed was laid. The early days of
the breeding of these brothers shows a cautious
spirit; adhering, indeed, in a general way, to
the Bakewell view, they were yet restrained
by the older methods and the generally
adopted physiological theory from throwing
themselves too boldly into a course of close
inbreeding. Consequently we find the Hub-
back stock inbred, but inbred with great cir-
cumspection and evident avoidance of extreme
incrosses. It was not till the great bull Favor-
ite (252) was produced by such a course of

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 147

breeding that the whole Bakewell theory was
put into operation. Favorite was inbred. His
sire, Bolingbroke (86), and his dam, Phoenix,
were half brother and sister on the sire's side,
but more than this, both were descended from
(the one being a daughter, the other a grand-
son) Lady Maynard, Mr. Colling's celebrated
cow purchased of Mr. Maynard, who at the
time of her sale called her Favorite, a name
destined to become the special property of her
famous grandson. The result of this was that
Favorite had, like his sire and dam, one-half of
the blood of Foljambe, and, also, he had three-
eighths of the blood of Lady Maynard ; that is
to say, that seven-eighths of his blood were
derived from these two sources. Of the blood
of the great old bull Hubback he had only
one-eighth, though twice descended from him
through Foljambe in both instances. This was
close inbreeding, but an analysis of Favorite's
pedigree shows that the blood lines were very
miscellaneous, and that no concentration of
the blood lines of any particular animals had
as yet been attempted. It is true that this bull
is twice descended from the two most distin-
guished animals among his predecessors — Hub-
back and Lady Maynard — but Hubback in each
case appears in the fourth generation, and the
cross which produced Favorite was the signal,
as it were, for the drawing together of the
blood lines of the Maynard cow,

148 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Hitherto the Short-horns seem to have been
bred without any regard for pedigree in any
way. They were indigenous, as it were, to that
section of England, where they were bred, at
least thoroughly fixed, as a natural element of
the agricultural interests of that region, and
bred for milk and beef, for the general farm-
ers purposes, for the dairy, and the butcher.
They were in a state of ordinary domestication,
unpampered, uninfluenced by any course of
special breeding or improvement except such
intelligent selection as the thrifty farmers had
done to forward their profits out of the nat-
ural products of live stock. There was no
danger of disease and want of stamina inher-
ited from overbred ancestors and transmitted
and transmissible through untold generations.
The Collings had a task before them which was
easy to point out, but difficult to perform.
They had a sturdy, but somewhat rough, raw
material *, it was for them to cultivate and re-
fine it. In Lady Maynard and Hubback they
seem to have felt that Providence had given
them exceptional specimens to work on. In
Favorite, by a combination of these and other
excellent specimens of the older, a later and
modified starting point was obtained. In Fa-
vorite the new movement was begun. In
short, it may almost be said that he was the
embodiment of that movement. With him the

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 149

Bakewell theory was accepted and applied in
its fullness in some cases in an extraordinary
degree. The chosen stock was small. The in-
terbreeding of the more successful results was
necessary to maintain the excellence already
gained. But it must be confessed that the Coil-
ings went farther than was demanded by this
necessity, so much so that it seems clear that
it was under a belief that close in-and-in breed-
ing was in itself desirable. This idea was in
some cases pressed to a great point, showing
that while there was a conviction of the truth
of the method embodied in it there was also a
spirit of experiment closely connected with it,
and a desire to see how far the course could be
pursued with advantage and safety.

As far as can be gleaned from the rather
meager accounts preserved to us Favorite was
a bull of little above the ordinary merit, cer-
tainly not of phenomenal personal excellence.
It was as a breeder that he was facile princeps
among all the bulls of his day and generation.
To him trace in one line or another almost
every Short-horn family of any ancientness of
lineage ; indeed, there are few Short-horns
which do not show in some line a cross to this
old bull. He lived long and was used widely,
but it was the depth of concentration to which
his blood was carried that puts him in so nota-
ble a place. His great vigor and remarkable

150 CATTLE-BREEDING.

prepotency left a wonderful stamp. Take for
example the celebrated bull Comet (155). He
was by Favorite out of Young Phoenix, and she
was out of Phoenix, the dam of Favorite, and
herself by Favorite. This is an extreme exam-
ple of incestuous breeding, and the result was
regarded as a great triumph of the new method.
Charles Colling said that he was the best bull
he ever saw, and the general judgment of the
day ratified this dictum, which is further con-
firmed by the enormous price he brought at
the great sale of Oct. 19, 1810, which was 1,000
guineas (a little more than $5,000). At the
time of the sale he was six years old, and a
well-tried and highly-esteemed sire. In all
respects he seems to have been a remarkable
animal. He died of general decay, ''breaking
out into sores" all over his body, which seems
to show that the course of in-and-in breeding
had induced a scrofulous disorder, such as so
often is caused by it. The bull North Star
(458) was a full brother to Comet, and also a
very fine bull, though not nearly so highly re-
garded as Comet.

In a number of the most notable bulls bred
by the Collings the same extremely close in-
and-in breeding is to be found. Thus the bull
Lancaster (860), which brought the highest
price, 621 guineas, at Mr. Robert Colling's sale
of 1818, had a great deal of the Favorite blood,

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 151

and also of the blood of Ben (70). He was by
Wellington (680), out of Moss Rose by Favorite,
out of Eed Rose by Favorite, out of a cow by
Ben (70), out of a cow by Foljambe, out of a
cow by Hubback. His sire, Wellington (680),
was by Comet (155), out of Wildair by Favorite,
out of a cow by Ben (70), out of a cow by Hub-
back, etc. Lancaster (360) is described as "a
white bull of fine quality, but narrow, thin,
lanky, and small"; and it is said that during
his life "a rumor was current that Lancaster
was delicate." This, however, was denied, and
he seems to have been a fine breeder.

The period of Robert Colling's active breed-
ing is embraced between 1783, when he and
his brother began to breed, and 1818, when
he sold the greater part of his herd, only re-
serving those not in a condition to be sold.
The animals reserved — eleven cows and their
produce — were brought under the hammer in
1820, and from that date we count the final re-
tirement of the Collings from the ranks .of
Short-horn breeders. Charles Colling had years
before, in 1810, closed out his herd in a great
sale and retired. During all this period they
seem to have been consistent followers of
Bakewell. We know that Robert Colling was
personally very intimate with the elder im-
prover, and for many years was more success-
ful as a breeder of Bakewell's improved breed

152 CATTLE-BREEDING.

of Leicestershire sheep even than he was of
Short-horn cattle. Says an English writer in
speaking of Robert Colling: "There is little
doubt that Bakewell's great principle of in-
and-in breeding was carried out most success-
fully by the Collings. Father to daughter and
mother to son were the principal direct alli-
ances, and the system was continued so long as
robustness and form were upheld." The Coil-
ings, indeed, may be said to have carried out
the Bakewell method of in-and-in breeding to
its utmost limit ; to have found what advan-
tages it really possessed, and to have proved
that it could not be carried beyond a certain
point. It was freely said that the cause of the
Collings retiring was their having reached a
point beyond which they could not advance,
and that they found their stock becoming dis-
eased and tending to retrograde. If this was
so, the neighboring breeders had not lost con-
fidence in their cattle, for they bid them in at
good round prices. It is interesting to note
that at Charles Colling' s sale no family made
such phenomenal prices as those having the
" alloy," or Galloway cross. This outcross from
the breed to another breed was a remarkable
thing to do, and Colling had mingled the stream
through grandson of Bolingbroke with his most
esteemed blood. It was by some long claimed
that Charles Colling distinctly regarded them

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 153

as his best stock. The blood percolated very
widely and got into most good herds without
doing any damage that was ever heard of. Mr.
Allen, in his history of Short-horn cattle, seeks
to explain away the very remarkable prices the
" alloy " cattle brought by saying that they were
"high in flesh and most of them sold to the
newer breeders, who were taken by the good
looks of the animals," and seems to think this
is a sufficient explanation of their high prices.
But when one counts among the purchasers
Messrs. R. Colling, Charles Wright, Thomas
Booth, and Maj. Rudd and Sir Henry Yane
Tempest, one-half of the explanation falls to
the ground; and as it was to gain "flesh" and
"fine looks" that the cross was made, if made
for any purpose, the other half falls, too. As
a matter of fact the Colling bulls had made
a great family on the basis of the out-and-out
Galloway blood with its North Country hardi-
ness.

The Collings tried both plans, wavered some-
what at times, made the Galloway cross, and
sent it into the herds of the best of later breed-
ers, including Booth and Bates. But their
legacy to the world was a belief in in-and-in
breeding for the bulls, which they showed were
never used at better advantage than when used
on outbred or short-pedigreed cows. Not a few
leading breeders, while seeking the blood of

154 CATTLE-BREEDING.

their great bulls Favorite, Comet, Lancaster,
Ben, Albion, Pilot, and the rest, doubted the
advantage of very close in-and-in breeding, and
did not follow them. These were the great
majority of breeders, and we could cite them
with value, but it is better to study only those
most apparently given to in-and-in breeding.
Let us take Mr. Bates next.

Mr. Bates is often spoken of as the chief
teacher by act and precept of the theory of
in-and-in breeding, and even more has he been
made the patron saint of the advocates of "line
breeding." Mr. Bates was well acquainted with
the theory and practice of in-and-in breeding,
but no one need be told that of the modern
invention called "line breeding" he knew noth-
ing. He was no warm advocate of in-and-in
breeding under any circumstances. Under any
other than the most favorable conditions he
openly declared his disapproval of it. He was,
indeed, driven to practice it to no small extent,
but this is explicable on other grounds than a
belief in the wisdom of the procedure, and
cannot be taken as contradicting his explicit
declaration. Enamored of the excellence of
his own cattle, and looking upon all else with a
not very unprejudiced eye, he sought again and
again to avoid diluting their perfection with
blood which he regarded as very inferior to
theirs, and thus strove to confine himself as

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 155

closely as possible to his own stock. It is im-
possible on the one hand to resist the conclu-
sion that the views of the line breeders of
today would have received scant consideration
at the hands of Mr. Bates; and on the other
that he engaged in in-and-in breeding, when-
ever he practiced it, not as a thing good in
itself, but as a necessary evil — an evil threat-
ening harm — but rendered necessary by the
supposed fact that no cross fit for his "pinks of
perfection" could be found. Mr. Bell plainly
sets forth in his so-called "History" what Mr.
Bates' opinion in this matter was: "As to in-
and-in breeding," says he,* "I believe that Mr.
Bates considered that it required the greatest
judgment and experience. He had the diffi-
culty of obtaining bulls of as good or superior
blood to his cows." Mr. Bell is not always as
clear in his statements as he might be, nor is
he invariably so reliable as not to be advan-
taged by a corroboration from another source.
It is, therefore, well to cite another testimony
to the same effect. This we find in a paper by
Mr. W. Wood in the "Gardener's Chronicle" for
1855, and in another similar paper in 1860. He
says that Mr. Bates expressed himself as think-
ing that "to breed in-and-in from a bad stock
was ruin and devastation, yet the same might
be safely practiced within certain limits when
the parents so related were descended from

*Page 201.

156 CATTLE-BREEDING.

first-class animals." "Undoubtedly/' adds Mr.
Bell, "many Short-horn cattle, by in-and-in
breeding and high feeding and training, did
become diseased." It is sufficiently evident
from these statements that Mr. Bates did not
regard the choosing of an animal of close rela-
tionship a universal recipe for good calves, but
on the contrary as a dangerous thing to try;
that he thought such a choice might be made
" within certain limits/' provided great care and
judgment were exercised in the choice. The
elements of such a choice, too, are not a few;
the bulls chosen to make the cross must be
"descended from first-class animals," and the
cows not less so; bulls, too, of "as good or su-
perior blood" with the cows which were un-
related to them must be attainable. Unless
these conditions are fulfilled the promised end
is "ruin and devastation." Truly this is far
enough from a belief that there was any ben-
efit to be gained by the mere act of inbreeding,
or from any idea that there dwelt in "concen-
tration of blood" some mystic and mysterious
spell which worked a marvel in the produce.
Mr. Bates was undoubtedly a man of preju-
dices, but he was a true and successful thinker
and breeder, and he looked fairly and squarely
at the problems with which he had to deal, and
dealt with them honestly if with varying suc-
cess.

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 157

Having thus cursorily inquired into the opin-
ions expressed by this eminent breeder, let us
now proceed to inquire into his practice. Mr.
Darwin, who was certainly in this matter an
unprejudiced student, sums up his examination
into the method pursued by Mr. Bates as fol-
lows: "For thirteen years he bred most closely
in-and-in, but during the next seventeen years,
though he had the most exalted notion of the
value of his own stock, he thrice infused fresh
blood into his herd. It is said he did this not
to improve the form of his animals, but on
account of their lessened fertility."* As a
general statement this may be taken as fairly
indicating the general tenor of Mr. Bates'
course. With this qualification, however, that
even in the first thirteen years of close inbreed-
ing there were two outcrosses quite extensively
introduced, through the bulls Marske and 2d
Hubback, though the latter was only half out
and failed to restore the herd to its proper
stamina and vigor. Mr. Dixon, indeed, saysf
that 2d Hubback was a distinct injury to the
herd; but "it was only when Mr. Bates found
that he had lost twenty-eight calves in one
year, and solely through lack of constitution/7
that he was willing to give him up. Bell, how-
ever, does not agree with this view, and thinks

* "Animals and Plants Under Domestication," Vol. I, p. 147.
t "Saddle and Sirloin," p. 152, note.

158 CATTLE-BREEDING.

that the loss of the calves, which certainly oc-
curred, was not due to 2d Hubback. Whether
the calves of 1831 died from some cause directly
traceable to 2d Hubback, to general want of
constitution, or what cause soever, Mr. Bates
had used this bull in the hope of restoring
strength and fertility to his cattle, and had
failed. The cause of this failure seems most
likely to have been -the fact that he was not
sufficiently outbred to effect the requisite re-
vivification of blood, and to undo the evil
which had been wrought. Mr. Lewis F. Allen,
one of Mr. Bates' warmest admirers, sums up
in his "History of Short-horn Cattle" Mr. Bates'
experience up to this time as follows: "With
the production of Duchess 32d (in 1831) Mr.
Bates halted, and wisely. From the possession
of his Duchess 1st in 1810, for a period of
twenty-two years we find but thirty-one of
her female descendants recorded in the herd
book. There were meanwhile sundry bulls
dropped from them, but mostly sold to other
breeders, excepting those which he had used
in breeding, and even they had been during
some seasons let out for service to various par-
ties. The simple fact was the Duchess cows,
as a whole, had not been prolific or constant
breeders, through abortions or other causes, and
whenever they passed a year or two without
breeding he fed off and slaughtered them."

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 159

If we analyze the results attained with this
most celebrated family during this period we
will feel no surprise that Mr. Bates should have
paused and deeply considered the situation,
and finally concluded that it was high time to
make a radical change in his methods. He
had begun with Duchess 1st, purchased of Mr.
Charles Colling, a cow full of the blood of
Favorite, and he at once began a system of
inbreeding. Duchesses 2d and 3d were by Ket-
ton (709), Duchesses 4th and -5th by Ketton 2d
(710), and Duchess 6th by Ketton 3d (349). It
would appear that already the necessity for new
blood was seen, for Duchesses 7th, 8th, and 9th
were by Marske (418), purchased at the Ketton
sale, and Duchess llth was by Young Marske
(419). Duchess 10th was by Cleveland, and
Duchesses 12th to 16th, inclusive, by The Earl
(646), and the 17th by 3d Earl (1514), thus
making a return to inbreeding. In like man-
ner the 20th and 22d were by 2d Earl (1511).
The half outcross of 2d Hubback is first to be
seen in the 18th and 19th Duchesses, and then,
indicating the strong sense of the necessity of
a cessation of direct inbreeding, follow Duch-
esses 24th to 32d solidly by 2d Hubback. But
the half measure was not enough. We have
already seen that twenty-eight of the calves of
1831 died that year, and 2d Hubback was nearly
related to the rest of the herd as well as to the

160 CATTLE-BREEDING.

•

Duchesses. A complete bold break alone could
save the herd; at least so seemed Mr. Bates to
think. The suddenness and completeness of
the change is well illustrated by the fact that
the Duchesses from 33d to 43d — covering a
period of seven full years — are everyone by
sires having no drop of Duchess blood in them.
Then, as we shall see that Mr. Richard Booth
did under similar circumstances, he began to
inbreed again the cattle which he had by this
outcrossing filled with fresh and vigorous blood,
but never again with the same recklessness that
he had formerly shown. With the 51st Duch-
ess the Oxford cross first comes in, that is in
1840; with the 52d, in 1841, the Holker cross
first appears, and so on with constant admix-*
ture of strains till the last Bates Duchess—
the 64th — was calved in 1849. When viewed
in tabular form the marked changes in the
method of breeding practiced on this family
is very striking and instructive. Duchesses 1st
to 6th are inbred; then 7th to 9th introduce
the Marske cross; 10th to 23d are mostly in-
bred again, with the half outcross of 2d Hub-
back coming in occasionally, while it appears
solidly from 24th to 32d; 33d to 43d are totally
outbred, and from 44th to 64th are very care-
fully, even timidly, inbred and mixed. The
practice of Mr. Bates clearly represents not
merely the opinions expressed by Mr. Bates

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 161

and quoted above but also the growth of those
opinions, and in the last period we have a-strik-
ing illustration of the conflict between his fear
of too close inbreeding and his settled prejudice
in favor of his own stock and unwillingness to
introduce any other blood;

An examination into the motives which actu-
ated Mr. Bates in his change of policy in 1831
reveals the fact that he was not half as anxious
to obtain any particular strain of blood as he
was to get some new and fresh strain of blood
to cross into his stock. Mr. Dixon very accu-
rately expresses it in the phrase which he em-
ploys. He says that Mr. Bates " began to cast
about/' and that very anxiously. He applied,
but applied in vain, for Mr. Whitaker's Freder-
ick (1060). He then sought Bertram (1716), but
he was already sold to Col. Powell of Philadel-
phia to go to America. He would have been
glad to get Norfolk (2377), and failing to obtain
him sent cows to him. He used Gambier (2046),
who got Duchess 35th. At last, after all this
"casting about," he made a ten strike in obtain-
ing the bull Belvedere (1706). Belvedere got
Duchesses 32d, 33d, 36th, 37th, and from 39th
to 43d. We have seen that Duchess 35th was
by Gambier. Norfolk got Duchess 38th, while
Bertram got Duke of Cleveland (1937), out of
Duchess 26th. After a time the extremely
strong outcross of the Oxfords was used, and

11

162 CATTLE-BREEDING.

when the bull Holker was used through him a
return was made to the blood of 2d Hubback,
which was now become an outcross owing to
the outcrosses used between 2d Hubback and
this descendant of his. Then, too, there was the
Young Alicia cross in Lord Barrington (9308),
the sire of Duchess 58th. It is evident that
Mr. Bates never permitted himself to fall back
into the error of his early breeding, but under
the dominant influence of his superlative ap-
preciation of his own stock used them as exclu-
sively as he dared, and warily and tentatively
mixed and mingled his strains of blood from
1838 to the close of his career as a breeder in
1849. The view expressed by Mr. Darwin, here-
tofore assented to in a general way, might ad-
vantageously be modified to some such state-
ment as the following: Mr. Bates' breeding
falls into three periods. The first, from 1810 to
1831, covering about twenty-one years, was his
period of tutelage, in which he was largely
governed by the theories then dominant, and
in which he was engaged in making trial of
those theories. This period is characterized by
deep inbreeding in its early years, and in its
later years by insufficient recoil from it. The
second period, from 1831 to 1838 — the period of
.his greatest independence of action — was one
of strong and varied outbreeding, and during
these years he made his herd capable of gather-

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 163

ing the laurels which were to give it such last-
ing fame. The third period, from 1838 to 1849,
was one of cautious mixture of in-and out-
breeding — a time in which the herd lines were
drawn as closely as seemed safe, in order to
enhance their repute and value. Throughout
this period Mr. Bates presents the aspect of one
struggling against his prejudices and struggling
in vain. It is important to notice that it was not
till the close inbreeding of the first period had
given way to different counsels that Mr. Bates
began to win his fame as a breeder and his tri-
umphs in the show-yard. His great show-yard
triumphs followed upon the heels of his second
period, that of outbreeding. It was in 1839
that, with the Duke of Northumberland, the
Oxford cow, and the two Duchess heifers, he
made his first great show, and it was in the
following year that he clinched that victory
with another, when the Cambridge cow and
calf and the Cleveland Lad bull were brought
forward. These victories followed on the heels
of his outcrosses and give their results. This
is not merely the clear inference from the facts
before us; it is also Mr. Bates' own avowed
opinion, for he declared: "My best stock are
descended from 2d Hubback's daughters put to
Belvedere, a union that has answered most .ad-
mirably." * In other words, these two crosses,

* "Bell's History," p. 81.

164 CATTLE-BREEDING.

one half out and the other a strong outcross,
following one upon the other, produced his best
stock. It thus appears from Mr. Bates' own
testimony that it was the outcrossing which
gave his herd its great excellence. Afterward
careful inbreeding of outcrossed strains contin-
ued the excellence for a time, though fresh
blood again (in the Oxfords) was soon de-
manded.

We have already noticed the conclusion
reached by the great German student Nathu-
sius, that no breeder of note ever followed in-
breeding throughout life. This we see is true
of Mr. Bates in a marked degree. He began
with close in-and-in breeding, which he was
compelled to abandon both in practice and
theory and never returned to it. The Duch-
esses have here been used as the exemplar of
his whole career because they were the pivot of
his life as a breeder. What we read in them
may be read in all.

Contemporary with Mr. Bates, and not less
notable than he, both as men and breeders,
were the Booths, Thomas and his sons Richard
and John. The foundation of the great Booth
herd dates as far back as the year 1790, about
which time Thomas Booth began to actively
breed the improved Short-horns. As descend-
ants of the elder Booths still breed this noble
breed at the old seats and still maintain the

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 165

ancient strains in high excellence, the Booth
name claims a place of extraordinary promi-
nence in Short-horn annals. The sands of a
century of continued labor in this one field are
almost run, and the results of that long period
are incalculable. This at least may be said,
without overpraise, that the work which the
Booths have done claims a higher praise when
measured by its excellence than when meas-
ured by its quantity and the length of time in
which it has been in progress. Thus, to quote
only a single example of the estimation in
which Booth cattle have been held, Mr. Dixon
says that "Old breeders tell us that the sight
of the Y,oung Albion cows at Studley, in Mr.
Richard Booth's day, is one of which they have
never seen the equal."

The practical beginning of Mr. Thos. Booth's
career in 1790 was the hiring of the bulls Ben
(70) and Twin Brother to Ben (660) from Mr.
Robert Colling. The'se bulls were by Punch
(531), he by Mr. Robert Calling's bull Broken
Horn, and out of a cow by the same bull; their
dam was a Foljambe cow out of a Hubback
cow. Thus he put himself in the direct line of
the Colling movement of improvement — a line
which he continued to pursue. Previous to
1790 Mr. Booth had owned and bred some
of the old-fashioned Teeswater cattle; in other
words, the so-called native or unimproved

166 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Short-horns. He obtained one notable family
from a Mr. Broader of Fairholme, a dairy
farmer whose stock are said to have been
"unusually fine cattle for that period — good
dairy cows, and great grazers when dry, * * *
of very robust constitution." Three cows pur-
chased from this herd, "Strawberry Fairholme,
Hazel Fairholme, and Eight-and-Twenty-Shil-
ling Fairholme, have the honor of being the
ancestresses of several illustrious families of
Short-horns." This is a specimen of the kind
of foundations the Booths sought, and it in no
small degree explains their success. These
sturdy, unimpaired stocks gave a fund of vigor
calculated to resist much inbreeding. We find
another example in the foundation cow of the
great family generally known as the Isabella
tribe, of which we are told* that "In the first
year of his residence at Studley [1814] Mr. R.
Booth bought in Darlington market the first
of what was afterward known as the Isa-
bella tribe. She was a roan cow by Mr. Bur-
rell's Bull of Burden, and, for a market cow,
had a remarkably ample development of the
fore quarters. She was put to Agamemnon.
The offspring was White Cow, which, crossed
by Pilot, produced the matchless Isabella, so
long remembered in show-field annals, and to
this day quoted as a perfect specimen of her

« Carr's "History of Booth Short-horns," p. 14.

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 167

race. * * * Isabella was the Rev. Henry
Berry's [no mean judge] beau ideal of a Short-
horn. * * * Isabella and her descendants
brought the massive, yet exquisitely moulded
fore quarters into the herd, and also that
straight under line of the belly for which the
Warlaby animals are remarkable. That such
a cow should have had but three crosses of
blood is striking evidence of the impressive
efficacy of these early bulls, and confirms Mr.
R. Booth's* opinion that four crosses of really
first-rate bulls of sterling blood upon a good
market cow of the ordinary Short-horn breed
should suffice for the production of animals
with all the characteristics of the high caste
Short-horn." The Darlington cow was sold to
the master of a boarding school, eventually, as
a milch cow, and she left behind her there a
lasting memory for the "brimming pails of milk
she gave." Mr. Booth's confidence in the effect
of a few crosses on fresh, vigorous, outbred stock
led to many more noble animals and notable
families besides those sprung from the Fair-
holme and Darlington cows. There is many a
show-yard record which reveals how hard cer-
tain short-pedigreed Booth cattle were to beat.
Perhaps it is permissible to think that the
fresh blood of the cows was as potent a factor
in the product as the concentrated blood of
the sires. But this digression has already pro-
ceeded too far.

168 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Mr. Carr says of Thos. Booth that he was no
servile imitator. "He was a contemporary of
the Collings, and began his career quite indepen-
dently of them as an improver of the cattle of
the same district, and he commenced it nearly
at the same time. * * * He afterward did
what wisdom dictated — availed himself of the
Collings' best blood and incorporated it with
his own. * * * Having judiciously selected
the best animals procurable of both sexes, Mr.
Thomas Booth was careful to pair 'such, and
such only, of the produce of these unions as
presented in a satisfactory degree the desired
characteristics with animals possessing them
in equal or greater measure, and unsparingly
to reject, especially from his male stock, all
such as were not up to the required standard.
Having by these means succeeded in develop-
ing and establishing in his herd a definite and
uniform character, he sought to insure its per-
petuation by breeding from rather close affini-
ties as in his opinion the only security for the
unfailing transmission, and transmission in an
increased ratio, of these acquired distinctions
to the offspring. In tracing the pedigrees of
these herds it will be seen that from the earli-
est period the same system of breeding from
close relations which was pursued by the Col-
lings was followed by the Booths."
In this passage Mr. Carr confused terms, or.

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 169

which is less probable, declares Mr. Booth's
theory and practice to have been opposed. He
says that Mr. Booth sought to perpetuate the
excellence of his cattle "by breeding from
rather close affinities" and then in the next
sentence says that the Colling system of breed-
ing from "close relations" was followed by the
Booths. Doubtless he intended to say "rela-
tions" in both places. If this is so it may rep-
resent what the Booth theory was; certainly
it represents what Mr. Carr believed to be the
Booth theory. That the Booth practice varied
far, even very far, from it, it will be easy to
show.

In the first place new blood was constantly
introduced into the Booth herds from many
sources, chiefly market cows of the sturdiest
type. In the second place constant and fre-
quent resort was had to outcrosses, especially
in that earlier time when the father and sons,
Richard arid John Booth, represented the fam-
ily. In more recent times, which are too re-
cent for our purpose at present, it is well
known that disease has terribly injured these
historic herds ; that some of the more serious
effects of in-and-in breeding have been felt in
them, and that wholesale drafts from outside
herds have been resorted to in order to main-
tain the actual and historic excellence of their
grand families of cattle. We shall only dwell

170 CATTLE-BREEDING.

on some of the outcrosses introduced, and on
them but briefly.

The first twenty years of Mr. Booth's breed-
ing, down to the acquisition of Albion (14) at
Mr. Charles Colling's sale in 1810, Mr. Booth
had been pursuing the Bakewell method with
frequent resort to very close in-and-in crosses,
but with equally frequent resort to outcrosses,
and he mixed all sorts of blood with the blood
of Ben and Twin Brother to Ben, on which the
herd in a certain sense was founded. A more
miscellaneous collection of crosses than Mr.
Booth's herd contained at the end of this time
it would be hard to conceive of. It was a
course of inbreeding with strong outcrosses at
frequent intervals. Albion was a six-months
calf at the time of his purchase, and was
bought at sixty guineas ($310), and was of the
" alloy7' blood; that is, had the strongest out-
cross in the Colling herd — the strongest of all
possible outcrosses, being as it was a cross out-
side of the breed itself. When put to Halnaby,
by Mr. Booth's Lame Bull, this strongest of out-
crosses Albion got Young Albion, which proved
one of the most splendid of breeders. Then in
1818 Mr. Booth bought at Mr. Robert Colling s
sale a yearling bull, Pilot (496), at 270 guineas
($1,400), by Major (398) or Wellington (680), in
neither case an extremely in-and-in bred bull
for those days, the relationship being aunt or

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 171

great aunt to nephew, though he had a great
deal of Favorite blood, which drew these blood
lines much more closely together. This bull
was a great sire also, especially doing wonders
on the out-blood of the Darlington Market cow
in "White Cow," getting Isabella and Own Sis-
ter to Isabella and Lady Sarah. Of the earlier
crosses used that of Matchem, purchased at Mr.
Mason's sale, is esteemed by Mr. Carr the best.
The blood of Matchem was used more freely in
the herd through his son out of Young Carna-
tion— Young Matchem (4420), his dam being
out of Carnation by Pilot. Young Matchem
made a deep impression on the herd. These
are only specimen and typical examples of the
outcrosses used in the Booth herds at Killerby,
Studley, and Warlaby. There was a long list
of bulls hired and bought from the days of Ben
down with out-blood, and they or their get
were constantly and freely used. To enumerate
but a few of them, there were Mussulman, Leon-
ard, Exquisite, Water King, and Lord Stanley,
all of which were brought together to produce
those wonderful beasts of our own day, Com-
mander-in-Chief (21451) and Lady Fragrant. Of
these Mussulman deserves a passing notice.
"It was sufficient for Mr. J. Booth," says Carr,
"that he saw in Mussulman not merely the for-
tuitous possessor of equally valuable properties
with those which his own h^^ajild boast, but

172 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the inheritor of them, for being descended from
the stocks of Messrs. Wright and Charge Mus-
sulman's ancestry had all been well known to
Mr. Booth for generations. It has been as-
serted by overzealous advocates of the system
of close interbreeding that the crosses of Mus-
sulman, Lord Lieutenant, Matchem, and others
introduced scarcely any fresh blood into the
Booth herds; for inasmuch as no alien bulls
were used but those whose veins were sur-
charged with the blood of Favorite, the re-
course to them was nothing more than a
recurrence to, or renewal of, the old family
strain; but this is really only what is true of
every well-bred Short-horn of the period, and
therefore proves nothing. * * * It will not
do, therefore, to claim bulls as of kindred blood
on this ground only. Moreover, it must in
candor be admitted by the advocates of in-
and-in breeding that a careful consideration
of the above facts leads to one unavoidable
conclusion. Very strong in-and-in breeding is
a totally different thing in our case from what
it was in the case of the earlier breeders — the
Collings and Mr. Thomas Booth — so different
that there can be but little analogy between
the two cases. They bred in-and-in from ani-
mals which had little or no previous affinity.
We breed in-and-in from animals full of the
same blood to begin with. In our case the via

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 173

media, and, therefore, the via salutis, would seem
to lie in the adoption of two apparently oppo-
site principles — in-and-in breeding and fresh
blood" It is also worth while to note the place
which Lord Lieutenant has in the history of
the Booth cattle. His significance is manifold.
First of all he was an excellent beast. "A
short-legged, thick, and lusty dog, but rather
lacking in hair," is Mr. Dixon's description of
him. Next, in Wm. Raine's rather prejudiced
opinion, "Booth never had a good bull till he
used Lord Lieutenant," and thus got Leonard.
Next he, like all of Mr. Raine's cattle, was a
wonderfully well-bred bull, being crowded with
the best old blood brought in through cross
after cross. Still, again, it is significant that
this good bull, excellent breeder, and immortal
sire of Leonard was full of the blood of St.
John (572), which bull Mr. Bates thought so
ill of, though if the descendants of Leonard are
any criterion of what St. John's blood was able
to do for cattle it is a pity that we have not
more of it. Lastly and chiefly, Lord Lieutenant
is remarkable as having effected one of the
most important outcrosses ever put on the
Booth herd. He was brought in to preserve
the stamina and give a fresh impulse to the
herd, which was needing it badly. Clearly up
to this time both the brothers — John and Rich-
ard Booth — believed and acted on the faith

174 CATTLE-BREEDING.

that at occasional intervals a fresh strain of
blood was necessary to the health and profit
of the herd. Mr. Richard Booth was not so
staunch after Exquisite failed to "nick" to suit
him, yet through his exquisite judgment and
the sturdiness of his stock, already full of
the out-blood of Lord Lieutenant, Mussulman,
Water King, Exquisite, and Lord Stanley, he
was able to put off the evil day till after his
time; but Nemesis was not to follow his course
in vain, and she wreaked her revenge when his
successor was forced to incorporate the Ton*
cattle with his herd because of impaired fecun-
dity. It was Richard Booth who first sent
White Strawberry to Lord Lieutenant in 1839,
though it was John Booth who apparently
selected both Lord Lieutenant and Mussulman
as the bulls with which to introduce fresh
blood into their herds. Whoever made the
choice it was made "with infinite judgment,"
says Mr. Dixon, and the event justifies his
opinion; moreover, there was, until a some-
what later date, no difference in opinion or
practice between the brothers. It was only as
Richard grew into old age that he changed his
practice radically. This divergence was no
doubt largely the result of natural disposition.
Richard Booth is said to have been "a dignified
recluse, and thought there was no place like
home"; while John was always fond of going

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 175

about to shows and visiting about among other
farmers and breeders. Naturally the one
drifted, as did Mr. Bates, to place an over-
estimate on his own cattle and an underval-
uation on those of others; while the other
maintained a more healthful mental atmos-
phere and juster judgment. It is sufficiently
evident, surely, that while the Booths inbred
they never ceased to recognize its dangers nor
to actively fight them with strong outside
blood until after many years, and that the
abandonment of the constant recourse to fresh
blood led to disaster. Nevertheless a single
example, traced for a period of years through a
number of generations, may make this some-
what clearer.

We have seen that the direct outcross of
the Colling bull Pilot on the " White Cow"
with a single cross produced the celebrated
Isabella. She was bred to Young Matchem by
the Mason outcross Matchem, and produced
Isabella Matchem. Isabella Matchem was bred
to the bull Leonard by the Raine outcross Lord
Lieutenant, and produced Fitz Leonard, who
was the sire of the great sire Crown Prince.
Isabella Matchem, with her two outcrosses,
was also bred three times to Buckingham, son
of the Craddock outcross Mussulman, and pro-
duced the celebrated bull Vanguard, "a noble
bull, as all the Buckingham bulls were"; In-

176 CATTLE-BREEDING.

surance, which produced to Leonard, son of the
outcross Lord Lieutenant, Leonidas, "a very
fine bull, sire of the notable Monk, one of the
best of the Warlaby bulls/' and Isabella Buck-
ingham. To the outcross Exquisite she also
produced Isabella Exquisite. Isabella Bucking-
ham, with her three outcrosses, is said to have
been "a superb cow." She produced to the
strong outcross Exquisite, Sample (four out-
crosses), which, though a plain cow herself,
like all of Exquisite's get, was, like most of
them, a fine breeder, and produced to Hopewell
Isabella Hopewell, a beautiful animal, and to
Crown Prince Lady Grace, another of Mr.
Booth's best cows. Hopewell was himself by
the outbred bull Buckingham, dam by the out-
bred bull Leonard, grandam by the outbred
bull Young Matchem; while Crown Prince was
by Fitz Leonard, the breeding of which has
already been noticed, and his dam was the cow
Charity by the outbred bull Buckingham, gran-
dam by the outbred bull Young Matchem.

In fine we see that the Booths, like Mr. Bates,
confined their breeding as far as possible to
their own herd in the main, but they took care
to infuse an abundance of strong, fresh, unre-
lated blood into the home-bred sires used by
them by means of radical outcrosses. That
this was the means which enabled them to
breed the fine cattle which they so constantly

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 177

bred is, in view of the facts, impossible to
doubt. Among the more notable of the living
breeders of Short-horn cattle Mr. Amos Cruick-
shank, of Aberdeenshire, holds a .prominent
place. He shares with the Messrs. Colling,
Booth, and Bates the honor of having formed a
distinct type within the breed, and of having
given to this type his own name, so that the
expression "Cruickshank cattle" is quite as
familiar today as " Booth bred" or as " Bates
strain." He stands .as sponsor to a type that
has been steadily growing in popularity in
Great Britain and America for a number of
years past, and as an admirable example of a
more recent breeder than those already named,
who has fallen under the same temptation to
which they were subjected, of making a close
sub-breed of his cattle. Some account of his
breeding methods has seemed likely to further
illustrate this subject.

It is now more than fifty years since Mr.
Cruickshank began his career as a breeder.
That beginning was of the most modest kind.
In 1837 he made a trip to Durham and took
back with him to Scotland a single Short-horn
heifer. He was then a young man. The son
of a farmer in the neighborhood of Inverarie,
he had inherited the sturdy Scotch character,
and had been brought up in the rather stern
school of Scotch agricultural experience. About

12

178 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the time of the purchase of this first heifer he
had taken the large farm of Sittyton, a then
unknown name, which he has rendered familiar
to all breeders of Short-horn cattle. His Scotch
temperament caused him to "make haste slow-
ly/' and with his one heifer and her produce he
was content for some time, but soon began a
system of judicious purchases wherever good
cattle were to be found, buying the best, both
bulls and cows. From the outset he bought
those that spoke for themselves. Individual
merit was his great object. Consequently an
examination of his herd's record, even in the
fourth and fifth decades of the century, reveals
many prize-winners, both among the animals
purchased from time to time and also among
the animals of his own breeding. Indeed, from
the very outset this herd took its place among
the prize-winning herds, and has won innumer-
able triumphs both in England and Scotland.
This speaks clearly enough for the character of
stock chosen by Mr. Cruickshank. An inspec-
tion of the pedigrees of the animals further
shows how good was the judgment displayed
in selecting the stock. Many fancies have had
their day in the past fifty years. They have
come and gone, leaving often scarcely the least
memory of their existence. Mr. Cruickshank
seems to have pandered to none of them. He
chose for the foundations of many of the fam-

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 179

ilies with which he has been most successful
pedigrees which the votaries of one or another
of the then existing fashions would have said
were very plain. Breeders were then, as now,
stumbling over that difficulty. There were any
number of wiseacres about to warn men against
this or that pedigree because it was plain or
unfashionable; but the so-called plain-bred
cattle were certainly good, and the fashionable
strains were far from always being so, and Mr.
Cruickshank was too good a judge and too
clear-headed a business man to be affected by
mere fine-spun theories. He had even so early
as this gotten a good hold upon the idea that
personal merit and descent from animals of the
same sort was the only bovine aristocracy
which was capable of enduring the wear and
tear of time, and making that his test he hewed
to the line. There was no iconoclasm or fanati-
cism in all this. He made no comments or
criticism on the follies of the day. While he
did not shrink from the most neglected stock
if they only showed a substantial pedigree and
that substance in the personal qualifications
which was a sine qua non with him, he yet was
always ready to recognize the good in the most
fashionable strains when it really existed, and
purchased and used some highly fashionable
bulls. In this he was in exact line with Mr.
Thomas Booth's most notable example.

180 CATTLE-BREEDING.

As year after year passed, and animal after
animal was purchased on account of excellence
in this or that direction, because of show-yard
triumphs, and other like grounds of sound rea-
son, many and various strains very naturally
found their way into the herd. It was a kind
of natural selection on a high standard which
drew from far and wide. Among these pur-
chases we find animals descended from the good
old-fashioned sorts of Maynard, Colling, Mason,
and Wetherell; newer sorts from the herds
of Booth and Bates; and every variety of
blood in one bull and another, at the founda-
tion or brought in by top crosses. A notable
strain, among others, of Col. Towneley's was
the Barmpton Rose (certainly one of the best
of the good old families), introduced chiefly in
Master Butterfly 2d, a $2,000 bull "of great in-
dividual merit," while others came from such
herds as those of Messrs. Torr, Stuart, William
Smith, Linton, Capt. Barclay, Sir William Ster-
ling Maxwell, and Earl Ducie. Wherever they
could be found to come up to the one clearly
fixed and high standard they were purchased,
if possible, and mere theories counted for
nothing.

This process went on for about thirty years.
After so long a time the herd had grown large,
even very large, and by the constant introduc-
tion of new strains, through the purchase of

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 181

cows and the purchase and hiring of bulls, the
animals were as thoroughly miscellaneous in
their breeding as it was possible for them to
be. For a long period scarcely a year passed
without the introduction of some new strain.
During all this time the herd had steadily
gained in reputation. This was often and
plainly shown by the large prices realized at
various sales. Nor was the success in the more
important direction of securing and maintain-
ing the excellence in form and quality, which
Mr. Cruickshank made his principal aim, less
notable. None who saw the herd questioned
the success of the effort to breed a fine type of
easy-feeding, short-legged, deep-fleshed butch-
er's beasts.

After so long a time, when the excellence
and the fame of the herd were placed on so
sure a footing, when Mr. Cruickshank was him-
self well past the meridian of life and might
naturally think the time had come to reap as
thoroughly as possible the results of his labors
and reputation, a change of method was inau-
gurated. But this change was neither radical
nor violent. The constant introduction of all
kinds of fresh blood from any and every source
was given up. The only rule of practice hith-
erto discernible was the gathering in of the
best animals anywhere to be found. This led
to an extreme form of outbreeding, followed

182 CATTLE-BREEDING.

not because it was outbreeding, but chiefly
because it was the only means by which the
Sittyton herd could secure the best that En-
gland and Scotland produced. But none the
less while these models of excellence were
being secured the highest advantages of the
outbreeding or natural method were gained.
The constant infusion of fresh, vigorous strains
from widely separated districts made the herd
one of the most vigorous in the land. While
other herds were growing smaller every year,
were showing broad marks of enfeeblement,
and were wasting to a bare skeleton of what
they once had been, this one had grown from
1837 to 1870 to one of the most numerous and
one of the most vigorous in Great Britain. It
was under such circumstances that Mr. Cruick-
shank began to use almost exclusively home-
bred bulls. But he fell into no incestuous
breeding. His herd was large, full of many
strains, and as fresh in blood as were the cattle
which Maynard and Colling and Booth began
their careers with. The famous Champion of
England (17526), regarded by Mr. Cruickshank
not merely as the best breeder he ever bred,
but even as the best he ever used, began the
new regime. From his time of service dates
the beginning of nearly twenty years of effort
to breed not only fine animals but also animals
of a common type. In his object of fixing a

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 183

common type upon his stock Mr. Cruickshank
has been greatly favored by a long and vigorous
life, and he has been wise enough never to sac-
rifice individual quality to type character. The
destruction of many who began well lay in
adopting the opposite course. Mr. Cruickshank
has studiously avoided the pitfalls of in-and-in
and incestuous methods of breeding, and has
worked consistently along broad and well-
marked lines.

As has already been indirectly pointed out,
no argument is needed to establish the certainty
of the success of Mr. Cruickshank as a breeder.
The records of his herd in the show-yard and
his well-established reputation both witness
very strongly to this, which those who have
seen any large number of his cattle do not
need to have proved. But there is one fact in
this connection which is worthy of notice, and
which certainly tends to enhance the impor-
tance of the success and reputation which the
Sittyton herd has won, and that is that while
the great majority of the herds which have
won permanent fame have been located in or
near that little corner of England to which the
Short-horn belonged in primitive times, this
herd has risen, thriven, and grown famous away
up in the northern part of Scotland where the
granite hills are bare to the bleak winds of the
Northern Ocean. There was no prestige of

184 CATTLE-BREEDING.

neighborhood or antecedents. What has been
won has been won by honest effort. The only
materials used have been good cattle, sound
principles, and hard work, and with them a
worthy fabric has been reared.

And passing this notable example we may
read the same lesson in the work that has been
done and is being done by many contemporary
breeders. To every one who has been alive to
the recent tendencies of breeding in England,
especially as shown in the show-yard, the
growth of a body of very successful exhibitors
who used the great rule of merit for merit's
sake must have been obvious. Among these
the name of Wm. Duthie of Collynie, Aberdeen-
shire, a neighbor, and in some points a disciple,
of Mr. Cruickshank, has been especially notable.
He has used many of Mr. Cruickshank's cattle
and some of his theories with marked advan-
tage. His fine stock bull Field Marshal, which
American buyers several times sought to bring
to this country in vain, was not long since hired
to the Queen for use in the Royal herd, which
well illustrates how the Northern fame and
Northern cattle are winning ground. Among
other breeders who seem to have much the
same views of the true method of breeding
may be named such well-known and successful
breeders as Messrs. Brierly, Game, Handley, R.
Stratton, and Hutchinson. With such men

HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 185

coming so prominently to the front, both in
Scotland and in England, it is perhaps not un-
reasonable to expect that the next period of
breeding will be one characterized by very
general miscellaneous breeding. There are
very few men in this day of anything even re-
motely approaching extended experience who
would for a moment advocate or indulge in
incestuous breeding to any great extent. The
most that is now met with is line breeding
carried to so close a degree as to be inbreeding,
at least to a limited extent.

To sum up, then: the historical testimony
drawn from the practice of the most famous
breeders is to the effect that incestuous breed-
ing was tried and found after a very short time
to be, even in the hands of the most skillful
breeders, an utter failure and a ruin to many
cattle ; that outcrosses are necessary not only
in order to maintain the constitutional vigor of
the cattle, but also to secure the best general
results ; that all, or nearly all, breeders have
abandoned the close methods of breeding as too
dangerous to be risked, even when believed to
be, as they still are by some, the surest road to
occasional phenomenal results.

The gardener and the scientist find that the
most radical outcrosses, even to the extent of
hybridism, are the roads to really valuable
variation to better types. The history of

186

CATTLE-BREEDING.

Short-horn breeding is certainly a record of
the need of frequent and vigorous outcrosses,
and is written more in the names of such bulls
as Hubback, Belvedere, Lord Lieutenant, and
Champion of England than such as Comet and
Treble Gloster.

CROSS BREEDING.

CROSS breeding is, properly speaking, the
mating of animals of distinct breeds. There
has been not a little confusion in late years
produced by a want of clear distinctions ini
terms used in breeding. The analogy between
the relations of family to family and tribe to
tribe and that of breed to breed has naturally
led to the use of terms, especially in the ab-
sence of others more accurate, properly be-
longing to the wider sphere in a restricted
sense. Thus we hear of cross breeding in the
limits of particular breeds, as of a cross of
Booth upon Bates. It is so essential to the
intelligent discussion of any subject that the
terminology shall be exact and generally ac-
cepted, that all such looseness of speech must be
deplored, even while we find how hard 'it is to
avoid it.

I here use cross breeding in its true, and orig-
inal signification — the mating of animals of
distinct breeds. We have two divisions of
this subject forced on us by modern conditions
which are quite distinct and require to be
looked at from totally different points of view.
In the first place we have crosses between two

(187)

188 CATTLE-BREEDING.

distinct breeds where the breeds are both well
recognized improved breeds; and secondly,
crosses between an improved breed and a
native, or unimproved stock. The conditions
of the two methods of crossing are quite differ-
ent. The latter we usually speak of as "grad-
ing-up" and the resulting offspring we call
"grades." The former is most distinctively
termed "crossing" and the resulting products
are called "crosses" or "cross-bred cattle."

Cross breeding in its 'narrower sense of
crosses between two distinct breeds of im-
proved stock has lost much of its importance
on account of the great value which is now put
upon pedigree. Pedigree and the absolute
purity of blood, to say nothing of the demand
so often made for a single, or at most a few
strains of ultra-fashionable blood, have in re-
cent years been so much the dominant features
of cattle-breeding as to make it almost impos-
sible for any breeder to go contrary to the
popular tendency. The tendency of an earlier
day was quite the reverse. There was a gen-
eral sentiment prior to the time of Bakewell,
the Collings, and other contemporary or nearly
contemporary improvers, that the cattle and
domestic animals as they then existed were of a
poor quality and could be and ought to be im-
proved. How to do this was the question, and
the general sentiment of the time adopted the

CROSS BREEDING. 189

idea of crossing breed with breed. At one time
it was carried to an immoderate extent, and in
the hands of ignorant experimenters all man-
ner of errors were committed, and these mis-
takes not infrequently led to serious permanent
harm. Other breeders of more wisdom and
judgment proceeded with more care and doubt-
less did not a little to improve the different
breeds of stock. The breed lines in many cases
were at that time much less closely drawn than ,
at the present day. The types were far less
artificially differentiated nearly everywhere.
If, however, it is true, as maintained by Dar-
win, Rutimeyer, and other men of science, that
the European breeds of cattle are descended
from three aboriginal and quite distinct spe-
cies, then it is likely that 'in some cases there
wrere more extreme differences among European
cattle in an earlier day than exist now, and it is
perhaps to the constant experimentation with
cross breeding that we owe the assimilation to
a general type which existed in the early part
of the eighteenth century and which more
readily yielded to variation than could have
been expected from the original type. How-
ever this may be, up to the time of Bakewell
improvement was chiefly sought through
crosses, and this method had the approval of
all classes; of scientists and theoretical writers
as well as experimenters and practical farmers.

190 CATTLE-BREEDING.

A wise man and judicious breeder who had
made a thoughtful study and a careful analysis
of the character of the stock from which he
was breeding, and who clearly saw that a defect
in one breed was to be amended by seeking
another breed with a corresponding excellence
in that point, and who blended and waited pa-
tiently for the result, not expecting too much
from the first generation, often secured very
good results. But the work thus accomplished
was occasional and spasmodic, and the results
as recorded and finally summed up in history
are without evidence of any material progress.
The most that can be claimed for the epoch is
that it was a period of preparation during
which the theatre was being made ready and
the instruments prepared for the activities of
the succeeding age.

The progress made by individual breeders
must have oftentimes seemed of a high de-
gree, otherwise it is impossible to see why this
method was so long adhered to to the exclu-
sion of every other. It has been well settled
that such crosses are very fruitful in vigor and
vitality. It was perhaps this which tempted
the unsatisfied experimenters on, and still on,
even -when the ultimate results were not what
was looked for.

It thus soon became necessary to come to
some sort of definite conception as to a perma-

CROSS BREEDING. 191

•

nent method. Was there to be a constant and
continuous interfusion of the blood of two or
more breeds, or were the results of the first
series of crosses to be made the basis of a new
breed, or was the cross to be introduced merely
as an occasional remedy for some particular
fault which, once done, the regular line of the
breed upon which the cross was made would
be returned to?

The first of these methods lacks any motive
for its adoption, and is too little susceptible of
systematization to seriously attract any prac-
tical breeder who aims to attain a real improve-
ment. The second was naturally a favorite
with many of the more ambitious experiment-
ers, but the verdict of posterity seems to be
that in most animals the effort to keep up a
breed formed by intercrossing any two given
breeds, where no other method was used in
conjunction with it, has not been especially
successful save in a very few cases, which are
notable rather as exceptions than as antago-
nistic facts. It is to be kept in mind that this
is not meant to cover such cases as those in
which a special quality has been obtained by
means of a cross and perpetuated by resort to
the Bakewell methods. The line of distinction
lies in the method of selection chiefly. In one
case the basis of the selection consists of all
animals which are cross bred in a particular

192 CATTLE-BREEDING.

manner ; in the other only such of the special
cross-bred type as are possessed of the certain
special features for which the cross was made.
In the one case the descendants all are within
the class ; in the other each successive genera-
tion must be carefully culled of all failing to
conform to the standard. If the qualities prove
non-transmissible and die out in the one case
the variety lives on as an empty name ; in the
other it ceases for the lack of a raison d'etre.
It is very doubtful if there is any recognized
distinct breed formed of the union of two other
original breeds which can be traced to a simple
mixing of the breed and subsequent breeding
from all sprung from the cross.

By far the most usual course pursued in
making crosses is the third method. It was
eminently natural for a breeder whose stock
showed a particular defect to seek a male of
another breed which did not have a like fault
and make a cross upon his stock with him in
the hope of curing the deficiency. The cross
once made, the ordinary course of breeding
within the old breed would be returned to.

A somewhat remarkable example — though a
legitimate offspring of the time and place, and
not a mere experiment — of the first method
took place in Kentucky in early times. A few
head of cattle — some Short-horns and some
Longhorns — were imported to Maryland and

CROSS BREEDING. 193

Virginia, and thence a few head passed, through
the instrumentality of the Messrs. Patton, to
Kentucky. This was between 1783 and 1800,
and none of the stock was very highly im-
proved, except that it is just possible that the
Longhorns may have felt the impetus of Bake-
welFs work. These cattle were interbred with-
out regard to the distinctions of breed, and as
they were few and the early cows neither very
prolific nor very fortunate in producing fe-
males, a hodge-podge of Short-horn and Long-
horn was made, all somewhat diluted by native
blood. No chance was lost to make a cross
with bulls of either of the original breeds, and
at a later time Hereford blood was probably
added to the mixture. The cattle known as
"Patton stock" were very decidedly superior to
the common native stock, and it was much es-
teemed and sought after; but after 1817, when
the number of pure-bred cattle in the State
began to be considerable, they rapidly sank out
of sight as they could not bear the competition
with the pure-bred stock.

The famous Kentucky importation of 1817
also consisted of Longhorns and Short-horns,
which in some cases were interbred; but no
new Longhorn blood being brought to America
the produce all came to Short-horn bulls, and
the Longhorn blood sank out of sight, and the
status of the cattle was changed to the third

13

194 CATTLE-BREEDING.

case, where a cross is made and then a return
is had to a single breed exclusively. In the
same year (1817) Hon. Henry Clay imported
some Hereford cattle to Kentucky, and they,
too, after being crossed impartially with Short-
horns and Longhorns and mixed Longhorn-
Short-horn bulls, passed out of sight, being lost
in the ever-increasing tide of Short-horn blood.

Crosses have been very extensively used by
sheep-breeders to improve and modify their
flocks; so much so that most of the cultivated
breeds have at one time or another suffered an
infusion of alien blood

For instance, the Hampshire sheep were
originally horned, large, and coarse. In order
to improve them a movement began, soon after
the great improving impulse of the last' century
had reached a good development and shown
what it was possible to do in bettering the
character of the British flocks, by using South-
down rams in the flocks. The cross proved a
happy one and the Hampshire breed was cer-
tainly improved by it. They are now finer in
the bone, wider in the back, rounder in the
barrel, and of better quality; and, moreover,
have lost their horns, being in this particular
assimilated to the Southdown type.

Again, in Wiltshire we have a somewhat sim-,
ilar method. In that country " where the same
old horned stock originally prevailed the im-

CROSS BREEDING. 195

proved Southdown gradually took the place of
the old breed, which soon disappeared. The

, imported Southdown ewes were after a time
crossed with improved Hampshire rams that
already had a large proportion of Southdown
blood, for the purpose of giving an increase in
size/7* and crossing of a more or less radical
nature has been used in developing very nearly
all the breeds of English sheep. The Cheviots,
for instance, have been used on a number of
mountain varieties, and it is said that the Che-
viots have themselves been repeatedly crossed
with other breeds for their own advantage.
Among those thus used the Leicesters and the
Cotswolds may be mentioned.

The distinct character of the breeds of sheep
naturally invited crossing. The great differ-
ences in quantity and quality of wool and in
capacity to fatten and in the quality of the
meat among the better breeds, suggested that
a wise intermingling of the blood of several
varieties might lead to a combination that
would be profitable to the general farmer.
The high excellence of some of the breeds of

. middle-wool sheep doubtless was partly a re-
sultant of this circumstance. Even more
natural was it that some of the hardy but
diminutive and otherwise inferior mountain
varieties should be improved so far as they

* Miles on "Stock-Breeding," cited from "Journal of the Royal Agri-
cultural Society."

196 CATTLE-BREEDING.

would bear it by crosses with the more valua-
ble sorts. As the conditions of life were im-
proving for all domestic animals about this
time such improvement was rarely at the cost
of destroying the capacity of the flocks to
thrive in their environment. Such crosses
were used on Welsh and Scotch breeds in the
main with great advantage. There was some
trouble at first in the cross of the Cheviot with
the Black-faced Heath breed in Scotland, so
much so that Youatt says: "The black-faced
sheep seemed obstinately to resist the influence
of foreign crosses. The Leicester and even the
Cheviot blood added little to the value of either
the fleece or the carcass, while they materially
lessened the hardihood of the sheep." There
seems to have been a general misunderstand-
ing of the manner of making the crosses at
first, and it was noted at the time that the
winters were exceptionally severe at the period
during which the crosses were being made. It
appears that at first those showing the utmost
Cheviot character were always the ones re-
served for breeding, "while the figure, wool,
and other qualities of the Cheviot rams were
most conspicuous in the smallest and feeblest
of the progeny" in the first cross; "while the
properties of the mountain breed were more
fully exhibited in the strongest and most ro-
bust of the lambs. This misled many of the

CROSS BREEDING. 197

storemasters. They did not consider that there
was as much Cheviot blood in the coarsest (as
they were pleased to call them) as in the finest,
though not so clearly exhibited in its external
qualities. This induced them to throw aside
the best of the lambs and select those to breed
from which had apparently most of the Cheviot
figure.'' The true method for the breeders to
have pursued was to select the most vigorous
of the ewe lambs and to continue the use of
pure Cheviot rams till the wool and flesh were
improved without any loss of physical vigor.
Although thus somewhat discouraged the in-
terfusion of the Cheviot blood was persisted in
till a large proportion of the flocks of the old
black-faced sheep had been supplanted by cross-
bred or purely-bred Cheviot stock.

Many varieties of swine have arisen from
crosses of breed with breed, and the same sys-
tem has at one time or another been tried
more or less widely on almost all farm stock.
Sometimes where the animals produced are
hybrids and infertile, crosses are resorted to
on account of the vigor of the produce. The
mule — resulting from a cross between the jack
and mare — is the best known of these cases.
A cross between any of the ordinary breeds of
the domestic duck with a Muscovy drake has
been frequently used to secure a large and
very easily fattened hybrid fowl for table use.

198 CATTLE-BREEDING.

These crosses are necessarily outside of our
purview.

An interesting chapter of Short-horn history
resulted from a cross made in early days by two
gentlemen, one of whom was the celebrated im-
prover' Mr. Charles Colling. About the year
1791 Col. O'Calahan, a neighbor of Mr. Coil-
ing's, bred a red polled Galloway heifer to Mr.
Colling's bull Bolingbroke (86), and she pro-
duced a bull calf known as "Son of Boling-
broke." This bull was bred to Johanna by
Lame Bull (358), and produced a bull calf
known as Grandson of Bolingbroke. Both of
these bulls were recorded in the English Short-
horn Herd Book, with the numbers (469) and
(280). The last named bull was put to Phoenix,
the dam of Favorite (252), and got the heifer
calf Lady, which produced a number of calves
to Colling's most esteemed sires, such as Favor-
ite (252), Cupid (177), and Comet (155). This
family, on account of the Galloway blood, came
to be known as the " alloy, " and the cattle were
certainly very good ones, and as the lines of
purity of blood were not very strictly drawn at
that time no special attention was paid to the
cross. At the great closing-out sale in 1810
some nineteen head of cattle with the Gallo-
way cross in them were sold at an average
price of about one hundred and thirty-eight
guineas, or about seven hundred dollars, one of

CEOSS BREEDING. 199

them reaching four hundred guineas, a little
more than two thousand dollars. Some time
after the sale discussion arose on the subject,
some claiming that the cross was made for the
distinct purpose of effecting an improvement,
and that a real improvement was caused by it.
The celebrated pamphlet of the Rev. Henry
Berry took this ground. Most Short-horn
breeders, however, took the position that it
had been done without any serious purpose,
that the stock proving good Mr. Colling had
retained it and used his Short-horn bulls on it
with no thought of repeating the experiment,
and that so small was the infusion of alien
blood, and so thoroughly had it been crossed
out, that it was a matter of little moment one
way or another. The effort to discredit the
blood was only partially successful, and we
find it in the herds of such breeders as Sir H.
Yane Tempest and Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates came
out at length against it, though he urgently
advised the agents of the Ohio Importing Com-
pany, in 1834, to purchase of him a bull which
had the alloy cross. It is so far behind us that
the "alloy" is now only an interesting episode
in Short-horn history.

The interest in crosses has been somewhat
reawakened by the success in recent years of
cross-bred animals in the fat-stock shows at
Chicago and Kansas City. These crosses have

200 CATTLE-BREEDING.

mainly resulted, not from any intentional ex-
perimentation with cross breeding, but rather
from high grades of one breed being bred as
grades to bulls of other breeds. There may be
some exceptions to this, but in the main this is
true, and they are classed in the shows with
grades. Among these animals there have been
quite a variety of breeds represented, and many
combinations of blood have been presented.
The principal breeds have been the three great
beef breeds — the Short-horn, the Hereford, and
the polled Angus. We find, also, the Galloway,
the West Highland, and the Devon breed in a
few cases. Among these there have been sev-
eral animals of very high excellence which
were crosses of Short-horn and Hereford, some-
times with some native blood also, and quite a
large number of a cross between the Angus
and the Short-horn. The steer Plush was a
successful mixture of Devon with Hereford
blood ; while the phenomenal steer Nigger
showed how excellently, at least in his case, a
mixture of Hereford and Angus blood had re-
sulted.

Whether these cases of extraordinary results
produced by crossing different breeds will ever
take form in any practical experiments to de-
termine the value of such crosses for producing
cattle for the beef market may well be doubted.
The method of grading as a subordinate depart-

CROSS BREEDING. 201

ment of cross breeding has been found to yield
such excellent results that it is likely long to
remain the popular process of bettering the
character of market cattle. It is still more un-
likely that any combination of existing breeds
will be made for the purpose of producing a
new distinct breed. The various breeds have
attained so high a state of excellence in dif-
ferentiation and adaptation to the ends for
which they are in demand, while the Short-
horn still maintains in such a high degree its
excellence as a general-purpose beast for the
farmer, that men are not likely to be distracted
from slow but sure improvement of these highly
improved breeds in a "vain, or at best a long,
slow, and unpromising attempt to reach an end
already sufficiently attained.

The interest, then, for the cattle-breeder in
cross breeding is largely historical and moni-
tory. In it he sees a system — one highly
esteemed and fully tried; one capable in wise
hands of producing some good, but in the main
tending rather to no permanent good result.

GRADE BREEDING.

WE have seen already that cross breeding
was properly divisible into two classes — the
interbreeding of two distinct breeds or varieties
where both were improved breeds, and the in-
terbreeding of one such breed with an unim-
proved or native stock. We have now to discuss
the latter method.

This breeding of one animal of an improved
breed with another of an unimproved or native
stock is usually spoken of as grading or grading
up. By grading is meant a leveling, step by
step — by gradations, to use a word of exactly
similar derivation. This grading is just the
same process as the word signifies when we
apply it to mechanical work, as grading a
street. It is, however, here used in the sense
of leveling up. - Hence the frequent use of the
additional preposition "up." The aim is not
merely to level, as is most commonly done in
mechanical work by getting a mean between
the highest and lowest points — though this is
not infrequently all that is really attained — but
the aim is to raise the average to the maximum
and to make the grade level with the highest
point. In short, to make a "fill" rather than a

(202)

GRADE BREEDING. 203

"grade," in engineering parlance. But of course
no analogy ever quite exactly fits, and so if we
run on after our analogy here we will only
obscure the idea which we wish to elucidate.
The process itself is simple enough, and the
object and its raison d'etre equally obvious.

The improved breeds are all of much higher
excellence in their special spheres than are the
best of native stocks in an unimproved con-
dition. They are thoroughly adapted to the
demands of the varied life of man, and the stock
raisers who are the purveyors to those demands
whenever they are alive to their own best
interests are eager to avail themselves of the
excellences which these breeds possess. There
are not, however, nearly enough animals of
these improved breeds to supply the demand
for man's use. If the pure-bred Herefords,
Short-horns and Angus should be devoted to
supplying the beef trade they would in a short
time all be slaughtered and cease to exist. They
are only as yet numerous enough to supply the
demand for cattle for fancy breeding as opposed
to market breeding; that is to say, for breeding
purposes as opposed to consumption. But there
must be some practical basis of utility outside
and beyond this mere breeding to give it an ob-
ject and to give the stock a market value. For
value is made up of two elements, the first
of which is utility, and the second cost, or the

204 CATTLE-BEEEDING.

labor necessary to produce the article. What,
then, is this outside utility?

It is based, first, on the need of those who
supply the market to have the best possible
products with which to meet its demand. Com-
petition here, as everywhere else, drives the
weaker to the wall, while that best fitted to
supply the need of man survives. There is a
limit put to the price which can be obtained
for such market products, however, by man's
wealth and ability to pay. While the best will
always command the highest price in the mar-
ket, it will not be an extravagant price under
ordinary circumstances. The products with
which the market is supplied, as soon as abso-
lute necessaries are passed, are regulated by
the price which can be obtained for them. That
is to say, the market product is first demanded
for its utility. Whether that demand can be
supplied depends, secondly, on whether it can
be produced at a cost less than the price at
which there is a demand for it. It is perfectly
obvious that if I cannot produce Durham beef
at less than $200 per head for two-year-old
beasts, and they only bring $100 for consump-
tion, and the demand for then is at that sum
and no more, the market will be unsupplied.
Men will be forced to take the best they can
get at that price, or a little lower if they can
get it.

GRADE BREEDING. 205

But price is regulated by utility and cost,
being merely value in terms of money. Hence
the utility of an animal of a beef breed we may
fairly say is its capacity to make good beef. It
would be gauged by the demand for beef thus
far. But cost means the labor necessary to
produce a given article ; that is, to raise a cow
or steer, and we know that a cow or steer can
be raised and sold at a profit at the market
rate. What, then, is the reason that a Dur-
ham steer cannot be disposed of at the market
shambles at the market price? Simply this:
"Labor necessary to produce a given article"
includes the whole labor. Thus as to gold it
includes the labor of discovery as well as that
of mining and working, etc.; so that in one
sense the scarcity of a product is an element
in the cost. Hence the labor in producing a
Durham steer includes all the labor of the wise
improvers who put labor of the most highly-
skilled sort into the work of improving the
breed. Every bit of all the labor put forth in
thus developing his ancestry counts in his
price. These steers are scarce then. There
are few that have so much labor put on them ;
if it were not so the labor so expended would
have lacked a proper return to justify its ex-
penditure. The production is always limited,
too — limited by the number of animals pos-
sessing this form of value, and limited by the

206 CATTLE-BREEDING.

ability of those persons engaged in multiply-
ing this form of product to maintain the ex-
cellence once given it ; for it is obvious that
if a product is valued for the labor expended
on it by nine workmen, and when passed into
the hands of a tenth, he, by his want of skill,
not only does not improve the article but spoils
that which was done by his predecessors, he
has decreased rather than increased the value
of the article. His labor has, as the mathe-
maticians say, a negative value ; he has added
work but not productive labor. So an unskill-
ful breeder may wreck the work of many gen-
erations of skillful breeders, and at a stroke
reduce cattle of the highest quality, in their
descendants, to the rank of mere beef cattle.
This is no more labor than the muscular exer-
tion required to knock the head of a statue by
Praxitiles from the shapely shoulders would
be labor. It requires real, productive labor to
maintain the excellence produced originally
with so much difficulty in our improved breed.
Not only so but the females are the sole
source of pure descent when mated with pure
males — their production is limited to not more
than one animal per annum, and half of these
on the average will be bulls. The bulls being
thus one-half and their productive capacity
being, let us say, fifty fold that of • the cows,
their demand for the purposes of breeding

GRADE BREEDING. 207

thoroughbred cattle is approximately as one
to fifty. That is, only one bull is required for
every fifty cows. From such a conclusion in
the abstract we would think that a bull would
be worth one-fiftieth as much as a cow. But
we bethink ourself of the demand for market
beef and we conclude with this additional idea
in our minds that every bull if steered would
lie worth as much as a first-class steer at mar-
ket rates. So we would expect the value of
the cows to be regulated by the demand for
thoroughbred breeding purposes, and that of
the bulls to be about one-fiftieth of that, or the
market price of steers, whichever was highest.*
But we discovered in our study of the laws of
animal prepotency that a breed deeply bred in a
fixed type was prepotent over a heterogeneous
or native type. And so the breeder of mere mar-
ket cattle, being anxious to attain the highest
market price for his stock, is driven by keen com-
petition to seek to improve his stock. The de-
mand he has to meet does not justify him if he
is a breeder of market cattle in buying at an
outlay of thousands of dollars thoroughbred
stock, however desirable. But as a thorough-
bred bull begets animals greatly resembling
himself he is justified in buying such a bull
and using him on his common stock. Here,

* There is really another element which sometimes occurs in such a
case to alter the value, but it is not important in the present discussion.

208 CATTLE-BREEDING.

then, is the great source of demand which keeps
the demand for thoroughbred beef bulls closely
equal and sometimes above that of the females.
The philosophy of grading rests on the most
solid basis of theory and experiment. The
scientifically deduced conclusions from the
laws of heredity, especially of prepotency, giv.e
the highest probability that the offspring of a
high-bred bull and a native cow will resemble
the bull, and that if this produce is bred back
to a high-bred bull and the process continued
for a few generations the animals resulting
from this course of breeding will be rapidly
assimilated to the highly-bred type. To these
conclusions practical experiment lends the full-
est confirmation. I have bred many grades,
many more have been bred under my imme-
diate observation, and I can witness, more es-
pecially in the case of Short-horn grades, to the
rapidity with which the process of assimilation
goes on. As it has been said that bulls vary
greatly in prepotency, so also in individual ex-
cellence, we would naturally expect great vari-
ation in the excellence attained by grading
with different bulls. I have already alluded to
a phenomenal case of a first cross by the bull
Renick on a brindled milch cow; such cases are
naturally rare. The second and third crosses
on good native cows by really good Short-horn
bulls almost always yield animals which even

GRADE BREEDING. 209

an expert judge could scarcely tell from thor-
oughbred animals.

Why, then, is the grade not equal to the thor-
oughbred ? For market purposes a high grade,
generally speaking, probably is. The taint is
in the blood, not in the flesh or form. Inter-
breed grade with grade and deterioration rap-
idly follows. The great principle in breeding
high-class grades for beef or milk, then, is al-
ways to use thoroughbred sires, and never by
any means to use a grade bull to breed from.

Why this is so is obvious enough. We have
seen that every animal is the joint product of
his ancestors, and also that the tendency of all
qualities obtained by artificial cultivation is to
decline when neglected; all improved breeds
constantly inclining to the original type. Con-
sequently, when a grade bull is used on grade
cows the tendency is to lose by frequent dilu-
tion the moiety of improved blood, and also the
further tendency to a general decline to the
native type is present in connection with the
former, and acts in conjunction with it and
gives it a cumulative force. He who tries a
cross of high-bred stock on his native cattle is
nearly always delighted with the result; so
delighted oftentimes that, choosing the most
promising of his half-bred bull calves, he uses
him as a sire. Disappointment nearly always
ensues, and a misconception of the real value

14

210 CATTLE-BREEDING.

of grading up follows. Others use a bull of im-
proved stock for several generations, and then
select a bull of their high grades to breed from.
In this way they put off the day of reckoning,
for a bull of three pure crosses is often a good
breeder ; but his get in native cows will have
only half as much improved blood as he has,
and will show it, in most cases, in the herd.
The use of grade bulls is, then, a dangerous and
condemnable practice, and one to be carefully
shunned. The grade cows are to be kept and
constantly crossed and re-crossed, generation
by generation, with improved bulls. The prac-
tice, therefore, which is followed in some of the
agricultural shows, of offering prizes for grade
bulls for breeding purposes, and for grade herds
and for grade bulls and their get, are of injury
rather than advantage to the agricultural inter-
ests of the country. The encouragement of
raising grade steers and cows is to be highly
commended; not so the bulls. Every farmer,
on the contrary, should be encouraged to steer
every bull as soon as calved, and to maintain
and increase every bit of excellence gained by
systematic and uninterrupted use of a high-
bred bull.

And though we saw in the foregoing chapter
that cross-bred animals of different high-bred
breeds often possessed great merit, as in the
case of the great prize-winning steer at the

GRADE BREEDING. 211

Chicago Fat-Stock Show, Regulus, which was
out of a grade Short-horn and by a Hereford
bull, yet on the whole it is perhaps wisest for
the breeder of grades to use only one breed in
his work of improving. For, as we have seen
already, much care and judgment and knowl-
edge of the different breeds thus crossed is
necessary to insure success, and this is rarely
possessed by the breeder of grade cattle — in-
deed, all too rarely by anyone. Thus Sir John
Sinclair says in regard to the general subject
of crossing two distinct breeds (and what he
says is precisely applicable here): "As to any
attempt at improvement by crossing two dis-
tinct breeds or races, one of which possesses
the properties which it is wished to obtain, or
is free from the defects which it is desirable to
remove, it requires a degree of judgment and
perseverance to render such a plan successful
as is very rarely to be met with." In the native
or unimproved stock the nature is plastic to a
much higher degree than in these fixed types
of improved stocks, and by the interfusion of
first one stock and then another with the na-
tive stock the fixity of type is gradually given
without losing the evil qualities accompanying
the unimproved stock. In some places we find
mixtures of Jersey and Hereford, Holstein and
Short-horn, and all manner of blood, till it is
well-nigh hopeless to try to breed them to a
good type.

212 CATTLE-BREEDING.

But by choosing a series of Short-horn sires
a herd of grades may readily be built up in a
few years scarcely inferior for beef and milk
and butter to that grand old breed; so by the
use of a series of Jersey bulls native stock may
be made famous butter-makers; and so on.
What the grade-breeder needs, then, is to use
improved bulls, and from only one breed.

The question naturally forces itself on us
here : How long is this to be continued ? Is
there no period at which an animal ceases to
be a grade and becomes a pure-bred beast?
Truly the mysteries of breeding are great, but
the mysteries concerning the words "pure-
bred," " thoroughbred," etc., are past finding
out.

The product of the first cross will contain
one-half native blood ; of the second cross,
one-quarter ; of the third, one-eighth ; of the
fourth, one-sixteenth; of the fifth, one-thirty-
second. By the fifth cross, as will be readily
seen, the native blood will be reduced to a
very small percentage, and as the pure blood
dominates in giving form and character it
must assuredly be of very little weight in de-
termining character. In consequence some
foreign societies admit animals to record in
their publications which show five crosses of
recorded sires. Others place what is meant to
be a requirement of absolute purity as the

GRADE BREEDING. 213

requisite of record. Thus unbroken descent
from an oriental source was long demanded
in the English thoroughbred, and importation
from England with an English Herd Book rec-
ord is still demanded of American Short-horn
cattle. Hence the anomaly that one may take
a cow in England and put five crosses of re-
corded bulls on her and her produce and gain
admission for the produce in both English and
American Herd Books, while a score of crosses
of unimpeachable sires will never elevate an
original American cow's descendants to the
dignity of a herd book entry.

In general it is perhaps safe to say that five
crosses of highly-bred bulls give the animal
the improved character. I am forced to this
conclusion by what I believe to be sufficient
evidence. Five crosses of mean bulls — weak,
impotent — will do little or no good. I am
dealing with normal cases. As a breeder I
confess to a love of long, far-drawn pedigrees.
I love the old-fashioned sorts which have been
long well bred and are deeply dyed in the dear
traditions of Short-horn excellence; I love such
old stocks as the Princess, losing itself as it
does in the far-off dawn of Short-horn history;
as the Knightley Cold Creams, as the Booth
Bracelets, as the Towneley Butterflys, as the
Mason Miss Wileys, and so on; but loving them,
seeing in them the highest confirmation of the

214 CATTLE-BREEDING.

laws of heredity, I am not blind or prejudiced
enough not to be able to see that the bulls
of their blood are constantly ennobling less
ancient lines by infusions of their blood. Cows
of five good crosses will win in the show-ring
as individuals, and as dams of two or more off-
spring; while the best bulls of the same number
of crosses will vanquish the most excellently
bred, both as individuals and as sires. What
more is to be asked? Yet we may not run
counter to the standards, and where a thou-
sand crosses on an American foundation are no
better than one, we must perforce still count
them all as grades. Not less profitable are
they for the beef market because they are
called grades, nor for the making of butter
and cheese. And these purposes of utility in
practical affairs are the end and object of the
grade's existence. For this end the breeder
and raiser of the grades must shape their
course, and for it the people at large will en-
courage them. On the other hand, the breeder
of improved stock would encourage them for
the demand thus secured for males, and the
greater and firmer this demand the more prof-
itable will the breeding of high-bred cattle be.

PEDIGREE.

THE instant that an animal distinguishes
itself for peculiar excellence of any kind its
offspring are regarded as of a specially desirable
character. This is simply a recognition of the
law that like produces like. The fixedness of
this law in the mind of men is always being
thus illustrated. This is the basis of pedigree.
Because men know that like produces like they
expect good produce from good animals, and,
in view of this, note the ancestry of every ani-
mal sprung of valuable parents. The next step
is to carry this on to the third generation
where a worthy son has succeeded a noble sire,
and so on generation after generation. Pedi-
gree is therefore a record of the ancestry of an
animal ; a table of descent. Simply this. There
is no magic spell in a pedigree, no mysterious
influence passing out of it and influencing the
animal whose genealogy it contains. It may
be a record of good ancestry, it may be — un-
happily too often is — a list of bad progenitors.

Naturally in an early day it was not cus-
tomary to preserve any account of the ancestry
of an animal unless it was very distinguished.

(215)

216 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Men did not care for a record made up of names
unhonored and unworthy, or at best in the
broad belt of mediocrity. It was only the
offspring of the phenomenally good animals
whose record of descent was valued. So not
unnaturally a vulgar idea sprang up that to
have a pedigree was a mark of distinction ; for
if the animal was not royally descended no
such record would have been preserved at all,
but the ancestors would have been permitted
to sink into deserved oblivion. From this atti-
tude the transition was easy to a general idea
that there was some necessary excellence at-
tached to the pedigree, and thence, to an open
valuing of an animal for the pedigree, was a
facile progression. The want of logic in such
steps is only equaled by the lightness with
which they have again and again been taken.
We have all known men who endeavor to piece
out the small stature accorded to them by Nat-
ure with the by-gone greatness of a father or a
grandfather. We have all seen men deceived
by the pretenses of such men, and toadying to
them for this reason, while the soberer heads
and clearer judgments of most men have be-
thought them of the frog that tried to puff
himself out to the bulk of the bull. Nor is
the case less amusing — though often seen — of a
miserable brute being lauded to the skies for
no other reason than that some remote ances-

PEDIGREE. 217

tor possessed fame and merit, and that this
miserable descendant is called by his name.

Pedigree, then, is a mere record of ancestry.
In the far past of every improved breed we-
find a starting point; a name which the merit
of him that bore it made descent enough.
None knew whence he came, or cared not to
record it. Thus we find such a case in the
Short-horn line in the Studley Bull. He is only
a name, without sire or dam that is known to
history. He stands on his own merit, a far-off
head-spring of a great and ever-swelling river.
Most of his descendants, which were doubtless
many, were lost to sight in the world of medi-
ocrity. But a little thin line preserved, per-
petuated and glorified this old bull's excellence,
and in Hubback won for it fame, and through
Favorite and many others his blood has passed
into a great part of the improved stock. There
were many of his descendants of a pedigree
very similar to the line which held the mission
of giving fame to it, but the descent was noth-
ing without the qualities of the old sire. The
descent only of those which honored it was
consequently preserved.

We see, then, that pedigree rests on the idea
that "like produces like." Its value, therefore,
is consequent upon the truth of the laws of he-
redity. It is because men expect a good beast
from a good 'beast that they desire to know the

218 CATTLE-BREEDING.

sire and dam of every animal they are to breed
from. It is because animals through sire and
dam inherit the natures and characters of their
grandparents that men wish to know of them;
it is because they now and again revert to the
character of a more remote ancestor that they
desire to trace back several generations ; it is,
further, because they have learned that the
longer time and the greater number of genera-
tions a family or breed has maintained a cer-
tain grade of merit the more surely will each
succeeding generation reproduce it, that they
seek a pedigree of as great length and far ram-
ifications as possible. All these conclusions are
natural and logical deductions from the laws
of inheritance.

l Is, then, a pedigree a guaranty of excellence ?
The veriest child knows better. The inference
justified by the laws of Nature is no more and
no less than the simple proposition that as
are the progenitors so will the offspring be. If
the ancestors are not good neither will the
descendants be. A pedigree made up of fine
animals, and only when so composed, may be
regarded as a guaranty of individual excel-
lence in the animal to which it belongs.

In the beginning, no doubt, only the descent
of animals sprung from superior ancestry was
preserved. But even in the case of these the
descendants have not always maintained their

PEDIGREE. 219

ancestors excellence. Some have been neg-
lected, and declined from insufficient food or
want of other things necessary to vigorous
physical existence ; some have deteriorated
from close interbreeding, while others have
suffered from injudicious crosses with inferior
stocks. To look at a pedigree, then, only so far
as the first half-dozen crosses are concerned,
when there are a dozen represented in it, is by
no means to know anything of the character
of the animal to which it belongs. The early
crosses may stand out as the best in all the
breed ; not a line may run outside of the very
choicest strains or be represented by any but
a famous name; and yet if the last six crosses
are represented by mere names, while the cat-
tle that bore them were poor, underfed, con->
sumptive wrecks, or the victims of other kinds
of misfortune or mismanagement, no man
could expect, with any justness, good results
from such a pedigree. We can only expect good
animals from others that are good ; and if the
two animals in the first generation and the four
in the second are bad it is only in rare cases of
peculiar change of condition for the better that
the excellence of great-grandsires exerts a con-
trolling influence for good in a great-grandson.
If every ancestor in a pedigree, on the other
hand, stands for merit of a high class, and these
many strains of meritorious blood are all

220 CATTLE-BREEDING.

brought together in one animal, then, indeed,
is a man justified in expecting a corresponding
excellence in the produce of such an animal as
the one to which this pedigree belongs. Then
the pedigree may fairly be said to be a guaranty
of excellence.

To generalize broadly, then, a pedigree is a
mere record of an animal's ancestors; the fun-
damental idea of pedigree is that like produces
like, and the value of the pedigree grows out
of the fact that we expect an animal to breed
according as it is bred, i. e., that its offspring
will resemble itself, and as it is a combined
likeness of its sire and dam, that its offspring
will, in so far, resemble that sire and dam, and
so on, hence as are the animals in the pedigree
so will the descendants be — good if they are
good, bad if they are bad. Therefore it be-
comes the veriest folly to breed from an in-
ferior animal whose sire and dam were also
inferior. Such an animal cannot be expected
to breed well. Hence fashions in pedigree
often lead to great harm. For if we become
so wedded to certain blood lines as to breed to
no animal not of those lines the time is almost
sure to come when bad animals are used for the
sake of their pedigree alone. Oftentimes ani-
mals of the temporarily popular strains are so
few and so high-priced on that account that
men will use them on most excellent stock for

PEDIGREE. 221

the sake of fancy and high prices. Once started
the canker eats deeper and deeper. Since de-
fects and diseases are prepotent, as we have
seen that they are, a defective bull will some-
times taint a whole herd, and through his get
many herds. And so the work goes on till the
record contained in the pedigree is a long, sad
tale of loss, decline, and decay. This is only
too common an occurrence, and few breeders
of experience are unfamiliar with the course of
decadence under such circumstances.

A pedigree is the simple record of a family's
life. The only thing which makes pedigrees
difficult to understand by those who have given
them little or no study is, first, the abbreviated
form in which they are commonly written; and
second, the rapid widening out as we ascend to
remote ancestors, and the consequent com-
plexity and multiplicity of detail. It is com-
paratively easy, think most men, to trace a
man's genealogy. It comes down the male line
and the family name forms an easily-followed
clue. The long generations, too, take us back
so fast that we can go as far as most men care
to go before there is much variety. I say, most
men think it is easy so to trace a man's pedi-
gree ; but as a matter of fact men do with human
pedigrees just as they are apt to do with those
of animals — attend to one line to the exclusion
of every other — only here it is the male, while

222 CATTLE-BREEDING.

in cattle, horses, and the other domestic ani-
mals it is the female. Let us see how different
the result is. I will take as a specimen the
pedigree of Baron Butterfly, my old stock bull,
which has already been given in its true or ex-
tended form. First we have the form, as used
in the records of the breed, which gives the line
of descent so abbreviated as to show only the
feminine line, thus :

BARON BUTTERFLY 49871,

Red and white, calved May 31, 1882, got by 2d Duke of Grasmere
13961, dam Butterfly by Airdrie Renick 7468— White Wreath by St.
Valentine 4348}^— Bridal Wreath by Imperial Duke (18083)— imp.
Miss Butterfly by Master Butterfly (13311)— Rosa by Baron of Ra-
vensworth (7811)— Briseis by Raree Show (4874)— Bessy by Thick
Hock (6601)— Barmpton Rose by Expectation (1988)— by Belzoni
(1709)— by Cotnus (1861)— by Denton (198).

We see that this is a Butterfly taking the
name of the imported cow, as is very commonly
done in this country, or a Barmpton Rose as
this family is called in England. Now turning
to the male line see what a very different story
we read in the record:

BARON BUTTERFLY 49871,

Red and white, calved May 31, 1882, out of Butterfly— by 2d Duke of
Grasmere 13961, out of Grace— by Muscatoon 7057, out of Mazurka
2d— by Royal Oxford (18774), out of Lady of Oxford— by 2d Grand
Duke (12961), out of Duchess 64th— by 4th Duke of York (10167), out
of Duchess 51st— by 2d Duke of Oxford (9046), out of Oxford 2d— by
Duke of Northumberland (1940), out of Duchess 34th— by Belvedere
(1706), out of Angelina 2d— by Waterloo (2816), out of Angelina— by
Young Wynyard (2859), out of Princess— by Wellington (680), out
Wildair— by Comet (155), out of Young Phoenix— by Favorite (252),

PEDIGREE. 228

out of Phoenix— by Bolingbroke (86), out of Young Strawberry— by
Foljambe (263), out of Haughton— by Mr. Richard Barker's Bull (52),
out of (by a son of Lakeland's Bull)— by Hill's Red Bull, out of .

Could the same thing viewed from different
points of view be more opposite? And yet
these are equally the pedigree of the bull Baron
Butterfly in an abbreviated form, and either
form would afford the data for an expanded or
full pedigree. Turn to this expanded form as
given in diagram on pages 138 and 139, and it
will make a still different impression on the
uninitiated observer. The brief record thus
given, which want of space made unavoidable,
might lead such an one to think that this bull,
instead of being a Barmpton Rose or Butterfly,
was more properly to be reckoned as of the
Rose of Sharon family. His sire, 2d Duke of
Grasmere 13961; his grandsire, Airdrie Renick
7468; his great-grandsire Airdrie 2478, and his
great-great-grandsire, Airdrie 2478, were all of
the Rose of Sharon family, and having thus an
ancestor in each of the four most recent gener-
ations of that family, it would seem that this
blood must preponderate. It is true that the
line which traced this Rose of Sharon descent
would be quite a zig-zag across the pedigree,
but it would not be any less the animal's true
descent. The fallacy of the conclusion does
not lie in the necessity of a zig-zag line to trace
out the Rose of Sharon ancestors, but in the
fact that these bulls are only Roses of Sharon

224 CATTLE-BREEDING.

because they trace in the female line to that
imported cow. An exact analysis of the pedi-
gree reveals the fact that in seven generations
there are one hundred and twenty-eight parts
of blood represented, and that of these this so-
called Barmpton Rose has only four parts of
that family's blood, and the apparently large
infusion of Rose of Sharon (or Bates Red Rose)
dwindles to only five; while there are twenty-
five parts of Oxford and thirty-eight of Duchess
blood. There are in all seventy parts of Bates
blood, completely swamping the Towneley
modest but excellent foundation blood; which
is, indeed, exceeded in the total sum by strains
from Mr. Whitaker's herd and by the Princess
tribe's contribution, and equaled by that from
Mr. Mason's herd. The pedigree is more Duch-
ess than anything else, but is one of those
superb compounds of many most admirable
strains, none of which were superior to that
splendid family whose name this grand bull
was proud to wear and honored in the wearing.
We thus conclude that the female side is the
important one for the Short-horn record — and
the same is true of other breeds of cattle — and
hence that the first cow with a name is chosen
to designate the tribe — in this case Barmpton
Rose — or the imported cow quite as often in
this country ;- hence this family is sometimes
called the Butterfly family, from imp. Miss

PEDIGREE. 225

Butterfly by Master Butterfly. It might have
been quite as natural to follow the male line
and say the family was of "Dicky Barker's
Blacknose" tribe, or of the Oxford tribe from
Royal Oxford (18774) ; and it is worthy of note
that the early breeders certainly paid more
attention to the bulls as the chief element in
the pedigree than to the cows. The present
popular form of pedigree was originally drawn
out as representing simply a list of bulls used
in making successive crosses. The cows were
quite neglected. Thus in the earliest time
the pedigree of Baron Butterfly would have
simply been given as by 2d Duke of Grasmere
by Airdrie Renick, by St. Valentine, by Impe-
rial Duke, and so on. And the pedigree of
each of these bulls would be given the same
way. Hence in many pedigrees the early cows
are merely represented by dashes; even now in
England it is far from uncommon to give the
names of the top cows for a few generations
and to represent the more remote ancestresses,
though their names are perfectly well known,
by dashes. The sire was the important factor;
to him alone was the number given which
made accuracy of reference certain. The sires
were regarded as the fountains of all the blood,
and it was of no consequence in most cases
what the foundation cow might be. The names
of the dams were inserted in the recorded ped-

15

226 CATTLE-BREEDING.

igree at first probably for no other reason
than because the growth of fraud and error
necessitated some accurate method which
would give a complete record' and render an
accurate reference not only possible but easy.
Thus the correction of errors and detection of
frauds and forgeries was greatly facilitated.

But, as so often happens with human inven-
tions, the plan which was devised for one pur-
pose produced a totally opposite result. The
names of the cows once written in, the appear-
ance of the pedigree left the impression on the
eye that the cow was the superior element.
This was greatly increased in America by
the requirement that all animals bred in this
country must trace to an imported cow. Thus
the cow, and not the bull, gives the family
name, and not only gives the name but con-
trols the value of the family as well.

The accepted method of recording cattle
pedigrees is nearly always misleading, and
beginners cannot too early learn that if they
wish to gain anything even remotely approach-
ing a thorough knowledge of pedigrees and a
facility in estimating their contents they must
resort to the extended form. At the same time
the abbreviated form is convenient and handy,
and when once clearly comprehended is calcu-
lated to give a sufficient and immediate insight
into the breeding of any animal. But to those

PEDIGREE. 227

who do not master the fundamental principles
and familiarize themselves with the practical
features of the pedigrees of the more frequently
encountered families the record must always
remain a mystery, and they will always be in
danger of being victimized by ignorant or de-
signing men.

Let us turn our attention now to some of the
practical questions which meet us in regard to
pedigree. In the first place the most impor-
tant matter in regard to the pedigrees of all
our improved breeds of cattle is to master the
foundations of the most esteemed families. It
is not so far back in the past since all our
improved breeds came into great prominence
as pedigreed cattle but that we may readily
master the basal facts of their budding pop-
ularity and the way they became written into
the records of each breed.

In accordance with what has just been said
in regard to the bulls being chiefly esteemed in
early times we find that as the breeds break
into daylight they are heralded by some great
sire or sires. Such among the Longhdrns were
Twopenny and D. ; and so also we find the first
years of the growing popularity of the Short-
horn Durham written chiefly in the names of
bulls; of the Studley Bull, of Charge's Grey
Bull, of James Brown's Red and White Bulls,
of Mr. Richard Barker's Bull, and later, as the

228 CATTLE-BREEDING.

day fairly came brightening over the hills, of
Hubback, and of his greater grandson Favorite
(252). From these bulls were bred many cows
and many bulls. The cows were rated chiefly
as being the get of these bulls; the bulls chiefly
as they displayed the capacity of their sires as
breeding animals. The bulls of the elder day
were thus succeeded in popular favor by their
most worthy descendants, and it was not for
several generations and at least two or three
decades that the cows, which were themselves
by the great sires and produced to others great
calves, won for themselves renown as the foun-
tain head of excellence. Indeed, in a great
many instances the reputation of families
which in later day parlance attaches chiefly
to the cow at the head of the pedigree is, as
far as the cow is concerned, posthumous, the
applause in her day having been given to the
bulls which had combined with so excellent a
result. Thus as horsemen speak today of the
value of a Hambletonian-Pilot Jr. cross or a
Wilkes-Morgan combination, the early breeders
spoke of a fusion of the blood of R. Alcock's
Bull with that of Favorite or a Hubback-Punch
cross. As time went on, however, the families
became more and more defined. The first step
in that direction was in the way of special
esteem for the stock of certain breeders, such
as the Collings. As they bred and sold many

PEDIGREE. 229

bulls the cows which they retained for their
special use became more and more intimately
connected with their reputation. Naturally
their affections became fixed on certain spe-
cially good breeders among the females, and
their produce, both male and female, especially
the latter, were retained generation by genera-
tion. Thus while the bulls were diffusing the
best blood of all the famous herds throughout
the country a little body of cows was coming
more and more to represent, not only in them-
selves but in their produce, the best work of
these great breeders. Each generation seemed
to have in an even greater degree the highest
excellences embodied in them. So the female
line gradually encroached upon the reputation
of the male, and in some cases though an ani-
mal might show a large and dominant per cent
of blood of one herd, yet he would not be es-
teemed as of that breeder's families unless it
came by the direct, lineal, female side. Thus
we saw that Baron Butterfly, though over 54
per cent Bates, was not reckoned as a Bates
bull, but as a Towneley; and though having
thirty-eight parts of Duchess in one hundred
and twenty-eight he was not reckoned as a
Duchess but as a Barmpton Kose, though hav-
ing only a little over 3 per cent of Barmpton
Rose or Towneley blood. We have an example
of this special increase of value in the animals

230 CATTLE-BREEDING.

of one breeder reckoned along the female line,
in the fact that though Mr. Bates owned and
bred many animals of many families yet those
who breed Bates cattle as a fancy hold that the
seven families classed by the female side, which
he retained to the close of his breeding career,
represent in a peculiar way his work" and some
go so far as to seek to exclude all others from
their herds, or even from the category of "true
Bates" cattle. In a less extreme way fami-
lies are very widely reckoned according to the
breeders and the foundation cows. Thus the
family known as the "Cold Creams" in this
country, from the imported cow Cold Cream
8th, is known in England most commonly as
the Furbelow family of Sir Charles Knightley ;
though not infrequently even there spoken of
as the Cold Cream family, from the cow of that
name sold by Sir Charles Knightley to the
Queen, and made by her the basis of a cele-
brated sub-family. So the Gwynne branch of
the Princess tribe is nearly or quite as cele-
brated as the general family or any of the lines
which have perpetuated the Princess name.
In these cases the Furbelows might be said to
have made their reputation more as being of
the breeding of Sir Charles Knightley, while
the sub-family as great prize-winners in the
hands of the Queen made an independent posi-
tion, which was exalted indeed by the superi-

PEDIGREE. 231

ority of their descent, but in turn honored and
dignified it. The Princess family has the pres-
tige of being probably the most ancient, in so
far as records go, of all the Short-horn families;
while the Gwynnes as a sub-family of special
merit have added a new distinction to their
glory of lineage.

It is not surprising, then, that in the direct
female line should now be sought the special
family character. Nevertheless, though it is
so natural, it is very apt to prove a snare to
catch the unwary. In the first place it distracts
the mind from a careful estimate of every ele-
ment in the pedigree to a single one. I have
seen countless instances of poorly informed
breeders valuing animals that were not even
pure-bred in the most exalted way because
they traced in the direct line to some cele-
brated cow. Few who have not had special
dealing with pedigrees would imagine how
common it is to find animals with a bad cross
in the bulls near the top tracing to the most
valuable families. This was at one time made
easy by the fact that forgeries, loss of records,
and similar defects abounded. In later years
these matters are more carefully looked after
and the records are kept pretty clean, but still
many animals with one or two bad crosses half
a dozen generations back are by no means un-
common. And by using a bull with a single

232 C ATTLE-BREEPING.

remote cross running to the "American woods"
on a herd of the most faultlessly-bred cows the
whole of the produce under our existing theory
in Short-horn circles would be reduced to
grades. Thus the idea of family in its ordi-
nary application is to be taken with great care
and caution. It is not enough to know that a
given animal traces to a good family in the
direct female line. To get the real key to the
situation we must take the standpoint of the
early. breeders, and taking up every bull see
that all the bulls in all the pedigrees have pedi-
grees running to good families. This is tedious
no doubt, but all good solid work is apt to be
tedious; and it is not nearly so hard as to buy a
few animals at large prices on the faith of the
family name in the direct female line and wake
up some fine morning to find that they are little
better than grades. I have had the misfortune
to have to break the news of this sort of thing
to a great many unfortunates, and I think they
would have been glad to have taken a great
deal of pains to undo what was irreparable. At
one time I used to get scores of letters in almost
the same formula: "Mr. Blank says this pedi-
gree is bad. What is the matter with it?" And
nine out of ten showed at a glance what was
the matter, and had a little study been given to
the fundamental facts of pedigrees the unfor-
tunate owners would not have made so much

PEDIGREE. 233

trouble for themselves. It is often a very small
rock that wrecks a very noble ship.

The beginner must make up his mind to take
up pedigree after pedigree and look up every
bull by number, taking the top cross and going
through each cross in each bull's pedigree;
make up his mind to forget again and again
what he looked up, for pedigrees are most diffi-
cult to remember; to be perplexed, discouraged,
everything but deflected from his purpose.
After many trials and tribulations he will dis-
cover some day that he does remember some-
thing, and may perhaps be saved from an un-
wise purchase by his knowledge. Then he will
begin to see that such knowledge has a cash
value. Then a great many think that because
they know something they know it all. In a
short time they will find that a little knowledge
is a very dangerous thing. If they stop and do
not prosecute their studies it were better for
them that they had never learned anything.
If, however, they press on, after a time the
detection of the contents of pedigrees becomes
almost a second nature, so familiar do certain
landmarks become. And there is nothing so
valuable to the breeder as a perfect mastery
of the pedigrees of the breed he is devoted to.
Few ever become masters of this department,
and if one wishes to do so the study must be
begun in early life. Young breeders will do

234 CATTLE-BREEDING.

well to remember that the moral value and the
position given by such knowledge is greater
even than the monetary value, but that the
latter, in saving from unwise purchases and
pointing the way to wise purchases, is far
greater than most breeders suspect.

In conclusion, as an old breeder of long ex-
perience, who has seen many fashions come
and go, I may perhaps be pardoned for adding
a word here urging all breeders to beware of
taking the view that pedigree is gauged by the
paper exhibit. As the pedigree is merely the
record of the animal's descent, and that descent
is only worth preserving because the animals
enumerated were of so great merit as to de-
serve being remembered on the theory of he-
reditary transmission of their qualities, so in
adding cross after cross to our pedigrees we
ought to remember that merit alone adds to
the value of the pedigree, and each cross made
with a bad animal is adding a minus quantity
and detracting from the real value of the pedi-
gree. For a time fashion and fancy may main-
tain this or that family in favor and price be-
cause of the way the pedigree reads (because
excellence in the past has won reputation, in
most cases), but if unworthy representatives
are kept on an equal footing with good, by rea-
son of such fancy, a day of reckoning will surely
come. In that day the breeder will suffer.

PEDIGREE. 235

But he will have deserved it, and we have no
tears for him. But the breed will have suffered
too, and I cannot sufficiently lament any act
that tends to undo the noble labors of the
wise men of old time, who formed the improved
breeds by their genius and transmitted them to
us as a sacred trust.

PART III.-THE PRACTICE.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRACTICE OF
BREEDING METHODS.

WE have already seen that while all the
various departments of the theory of breeding
are properly reducible to a science, and that
the body of laws which we have hitherto been
engaged in investigating may be justly regarded
as the framework of that systematized series
of facts, that there is no less in the finished
rules of application of these scientific laws to
the daily practical work an art. An art useful
in itself, honorable and noble in its end, lofty
in its application. I do not deal in rhetoric; I
claim in all soberness of spirit all these things
for the art of cattle-breeding. I have already
shown some grounds for my belief in its dig-
nity. It is for me nOw merely to give some
of the rules and to show the reasons for their
existence.

The outline of this practical art may be
drawn out under two heads: the choice of the
material to work on and the treatment of it.
And under the latter head we have three prin-
cipal divisions: housing, feeding, and general
care and attention; divisions more dependent,

(239)

240 CATTLE-BREEDING.

perhaps, on the logic of facts than of thought,
but sufficiently accurate and exhaustive for our
purpose. I confess to just a little dread of the
pure theorist. The man who in his cozy study
evolves a fine theory of farming and carries it
out without regard to anything else except his
faith in his own theory, and utterly uncon-
scious of every other thing, rarely proves a suc-
cessful agriculturist; were it not from a desire
not to be uncharitable I would say never
proves other than a failure. The late Henry
Ward Beecher's humorous account of his ex-
periences as an amateur farmer, in which he
depicted his immense anticipations, his beauti-
ful theories, his small returns and large deficit,
is well known to most American farmers. We
cannot too carefully avoid such a condition of
things. It is a common accusation that is
leveled at writers on agricultural topics that if
you want to see a badly-managed farm visit
that of some voluminous writer on the care of
farms. Perhaps they may feel satisfied when
they have retorted in the words of the old
Baptist minister who was a pioneer preacher
in the Western wilds and found it hard, in his
own personal conduct, to reconcile precept and
practice, and who constantly warned his flock:
"Don't do as I do; do as I tell you to do." It is
sometimes well to serve as a warning; but I
am afraid that most writers of this class are

BREEDING METHODS. 241

regarded as warnings to others against writing
rather than as against bad farming. If they
warned against the latter and accentuated the
evil by advertising it, they should assuredly be
encouraged so far as possible to rush into print,
for no lesson needs to be more widely taught
and more thoroughly learned than that of the
evil of slovenly, wasteful farm management

I am not going to try to inculcate, then, any
hot-house, indoor theories; any fancies thin
as air and tenuous as morning dreams; nor
shall I seek to point a way which shall be only
practicable to the few wealthy stock-breeders
who can afford to use every appliance, however
costly or difficult to obtain. Where the cir-
cumstances will admit of it we should seek to
apply the strict economical law, that in order
to rightly conduct any business we must have
the most suitable material and the most per-
fectly adapted labor; that we must have the
labor so utilized as to waste as little as possible
of time and energy, and the materials so used
as to get the utmost return in initial consump-
tion, and also make use of the waste in some
way to prevent its loss. But in many cases in
Western farming we only roughly approximate
this law, and I am too little of a theorist and
too much of a practical farmer to think that
the world is coming to an end in consequence.
We must indeed work toward it. If we do not

16

242 CATTLE-BREEDING.

our boasted progressiveness is a delusion and a
snare. But our conditions of life forbid our
starting out with farms perfectly equipped
with every time and labor-saving device which
the ingenuity of the world has perfected. I look
with a lenient eye on land wasted in this West-
ern country, where land is abundant, by wide,
sprawling worm fences; on water courses closely
bordered by undergrowth of alders and sumac;
and on many other similar cases of neglect;
provided the land that is cultivated is well
cultivated, the land that is cleared is kept well
cleared, and the briars, and thistles, and burrs
are kept out of every corner, and the whole
aspect is one of constant growth toward com-
plete mastery and utilization of every foot of
land. "Haste -makes waste," is an old saying,
and in many senses a true one. It is better to
waste a little land in using a sprawling fence
than to waste more by missing the opportunity
of good cultivation for a crop by consuming
precious time in erecting a better fence. There
is another old saying in England that it takes
one generation to make a fortune but three to
make a lawn. If this is true of a small plot
of carefully tended land in an old country in
which the soil has long been subdued and
brought under the hand of man, how much
allowance ought to be made for us here in
the West, who but a few years ago began to

BREEDING METHODS. 243

reclaim a virgin forest from the native cane,
and an untilled prairie from the wild and
luxuriant growth of noxious weeds? We can
afford to treat with an amused indifference the
strictures of England's self-appointed prophet
of " sweetness and light," the late Mr. Mathew
Arnold, upon the crudity of our civilization,
when we remember how nearly we have ap-
proximated in a few decades the work of a
thousand years in England.

It is not for an ideal country, then, that I
shall seek to offer some ideas on the subject
of the practical management of farm stock, nor
for some ideal state of cultivation and refine-
ment in practice. I have been a hard-working,
practical man all my days. I have had my
ups and downs, my successes and my failures.
From all, my failures, not less, nay more, than
my successes, I have learned, and out of all
these lessons I have drawn what I would fain
call my experience. I say this dreading, lest
others fear," as I often do, what men call their
experience. How often do we confuse excep-
tional cases which take hold on our minds with
the general tenor of our observation. It is so
easy to remember striking instances; so hard
to remember that the more striking an in-
stance is the more extraordinary it is likely to
be. And what we really want is the series of
ordinary occurrences, not the extraordinary.

244 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Our experience is of very little value if it is
based on a series of judgments upon all the
exceptional occurrences of a life-time. It may
be very prosaic to talk of the thousand and one
affairs of every-day life which are happening
under everybody else's eyes as well as our own;
it may be very prosaic, but what does it matter
if it is? I am not engaged in writing a novel,
but a practical book for practical men. It is a
very prosaic thing, this raising of cattle, some
men think, though Joaquin Miller has struck
a truer key in his verse, which I heartily ap-
plaud, when he says:

"And I have said, and I say it ever,
As the years go on, and the world goes over,
'Twere better to be content and clever
In tending of cattle and tossing of clover,
In the grazing of cattle and the growing of grain,
Than a strong man striving for fame and gain."

But despite the poet it is a prosaic thing to
feed and bed down and milk and care for a lot
of cows year in and year out; to have them
fall sick always of the same old troubles; to
have .them grow old and die; life itself is pro-
saic. But also, as a true poet has said, "life is
real, life is earnest."

"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Finds us farther than today."

And I am sure that earnest men do not
want fancy theories; they "want thought, true

BREEDING METHODS. 245

thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treas-
ure up"; and more than this, they want the
simple key which makes each thought able to
unlock some hard fact of life. So I shall seek
only to give out of the long experience which
has been granted me such of the practical every-
day facts and thoughts as I know or feel sure
will be of active service to some — may they be
many — of those who like myself are trying to
fulfill in an earnest spirit the duties of our mu-
tual calling. I am sure the indulgent reader
will pardon the somewhat autobiographical
tone of this chapter and those which follow;
for I cannot speak in them with that decision
which we may justly use where we are only
expressing a concurrence in the conclusions of
great thinkers and scholars; here I can only
give my own views; they are only valuable as
the observations of one worker in a great field.
I do not state them as facts, but as what I have
from my own limited observation concluded
to be facts. I, indeed, am prepared to defend
them and to maintain their truth and accuracy
until I am convinced that I am wrong, but I
cannot press them on others by the weight of
any sanction such as we find in some other
departments. I only offer the following pages
as so many leaves out of my own life. They
are the daily pencilings of nearly a half century
of life in and about a stock farm.

SELECTION OF BKEEDING ANIMALS.

IT may seem unimportant to many to dwell
upon this branch of our subject; they have al-
ready embarked on their venture and they wish
only to know how to steer their bark into the
desired haven — not how to build and fit and lade
her. But I must differ with such a position.
Beginners are often in search of advice on this
subject and know not where to seek it. Others,
too, who have made a more or less vigorous be-
ginning are in doubt, oftentimes, of the wisdom
of their start and need to be confirmed in the
correctness of a wise step or warned against
proceeding on a wrong path already entered
upon. A very voluminous correspondence upon
this single topic, extending over many years,
has taught me how wide the interest in this
matter is and particularly how many make bad
beginnings and how fatal such beginnings are
to after success.

I shall have particularly to do here with
pure-bred cattle only, for I cannot for a mo-
ment think of advising anything so foreign to
progress and thrift as that a breeder should set
out* with the poetic but unproductive scrub.
Incidentally I shall urge upon the owner of that

(246)

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 247

animal of ancient but unrecorded lineage the
proper step to raise it into a new life and higher
productiveness, but my subject essentially con-
cerns itself only with the pure-bred animals of
the recognized breeds.

The breed which any one determines upon is
to be settled by his individual taste. I do not
desire, writing as I hope I do, for more than the
clientage of my own favorite breed — the Short-
horn— to urge any one breed upon the rest of
the world. I recognize the excellences — and
they are many — possessed by all the improved
breeds. If the breeder's object is the produc-
tion of beef the Hereford, the Aberdeen- Angus,
the Galloway, the Short-horn are all most ad-
mirable; for dairy cattle the Jersey and the
kindred stocks of the other Channel Islands, the
Holstein-Friesians, the Ayrshires, and the Short-
horns all have their exclusive admirers; and
they are not the only ones in each department
which I might name for commendation, for the
lists given are not meant to be at all exhaustive.
There is, for instance, the valuable Devon breed,
famous for draft purposes, and claiming to be
equal to the Short-horn as a general-purpose
animal; and also the Red Polled cattle, highly
esteemed by some both in America and Eu-
rope. Any of these stocks offer good invest-
ments. The great expansion and large num-
bers of Short-horns would seem to witness to

' •

248 CATTLE-BREEDING.

their supreme popularity; but I confess to look-
ing on them with the eye with which a lover
regards his mistress. While I have owned and
bred other cattle, most of my experience has
been gained from the breeding of Short-horns.
Nevertheless most of the following pages have
a general application; wherever the contrary is
the case I will mark the particular application.
Having selected the kind of cattle which are
to be bred, the next step is the selection of suit-
able individuals. This is no easy task in any
case, and if the number is to be small and the
amount of money to be expended in their pur-
chase very limited the difficulty is much greater.
Two things need to be very rigidly insisted upon,
and unless they are the beginning will be alto-
gether bad, and the result must of necessity be
disappointing. The essentials of an improved
breed which give it superior excellence beyond
unimproved stock are individual merit and the
guaranty, by virtue of long descent through
other animals of like merit, that they will pro-
duce similarly good stock; that is, pedigree.
Hence, individual merit and good pedigree are
the two things to be looked for and insisted on
in making purchases of breeding stock. Want-
ing either of these the stock should be rejected
without a second thought. It does not matter
how good the stock is, if the pedigree is de-
ficient do not touch it; nor how admirable the

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 249

pedigree, if the stock have not personal merit
a good pedigree is the worst of delusions. The
two things must go together. There is no mid-
dle ground; no room for compromise.

Nor is it difficult to find the right kind of
stock among any of the well-recognized breeds.
There are an abundance of cattle having the
essentials insisted on. If this were not so they
would not be slow in passing out of existence,
or at least out of popularity. The excellence
demanded is no fancy marking or series of
markings; no white ear lobes, or feathered legs,
or accurately defined markings, such as are
valued among what are sometimes called "pet,
or fancy stock/' fowls, pigeons, etc. True some
may reject a Short-horn bull because he has as
much white on him as red, or a Hereford be-
cause the white face tends to extend into a
white head; but these are things apart. The
excellence really asked and insisted on is beef-
making capacity in the Hereford — a frame
formed for carrying flesh, filled out evenly and
smoothly, and carrying most flesh where the
most esteemed cuts come from, and with it show-
ing the sturdy constitution which all healthy
animals must have. In the Jersey, on the other
hand, we expect the great, square, blocky form
to yield to the smaller, lighter frame, wide be-
hind, light in front; wedge shaped, as the
phrase is; in fine, the typical shape of the

250 CATTLE-BREEDING.

milch cow, and with it the large udder and
other evidences of milking quality — not insist-
ing too much on a fine "escutcheon" unless we
are quite sure that it is an infallible sign of
milk productiveness and not simply a mere
fancy point; and in the Short-horn we will
look for all those evidences of the high-class
beef beast which we sought in the Hereford,
knowing that a Short-horn is first and before
all else a beef producer; secondly, if we want a
truly model Short-horn (and they are far from
scarce) we will seek for one showing a large
udder and other signs of milk production. The
typical Short-horn should not be lacking here.
Thus whatever variety of stock we fix upon we
must acquaint ourselves with the recognized
standard of the breed and seek to satisfy it in
the animals we select. We would not demand
milk production of an Angus nor a butter rec-
ord of a Galloway, nor beefiness in a Jersey;
but we must rigidly insist on having animals
superior to ordinary stock in the special quali-
ties for which we are adopting the breed ; else,
where would be the advantage in giving a
larger price for a pure-bred than a scrub of
equal merit could be purchased for? We have
seen that the pedigree never promises good
fruit from a bad stock, but the reverse; so there
is no recourse to be found there. Having in-
sisted on this conformity to the recognized

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 251

standard in individual merit we must next ap-
ply the test of breeding and make trial of the
pedigree.

A good pedigree is absolutely essential wher-
ever a pure breed is to be bred. We have al-
ready examined into the theoretical value of
pedigree. We now come to the practical ques-
tion of how to apply the law of value. We
must here lay down a general principle only.
In every breed this question assumes a personal
value, and in the jealousies and rivalries which
grow out of this personal value the inquiries
into excellence of pedigree become burning
questions. But here we have nothing to do
with fads and fancies ; only with the general
rule in its wide and ordinary application. Fan-
cies rarely go very deep, though they may seem
for a time to be quite strong and active. They
are, indeed, like the breezes which ruffle the
surface of the sea and make the white caps
shine and gleam; that dash the water by the
shore on high in sparkling spray, but do not
after all greatly disturb the great body of water
which sleeps in the depths of ocean, unstirred
by the commotion.

In the first place a good pedigree is one which
shows a series of good beasts recorded, one after
the other, in the descent of the animal to which
it belongs; and this being so it says: " Since

252 CATTLE-BREEDING.

like produces like, and all of these animals,
all of personal excellence, have followed each
other, each pair in turn producing an excellent
offspring, ending at last in this meritorious ani-
mal, so this animal is in consequence hereby
guaranteed to produce excellent descendants."
This gives what we might call an excellent
natural pedigree. In addition to this we must
have a pedigree in all respects conformable to
the artificial standard of the particular breed.
This may or may not conform with the require-
ments of the herd books of each breed. We
may say in general that most of the herd books
are more indulgent than the public opinion
among the breeders. Thus it is very well settled
that to constitute a good Short-horn pedigree
every animal in it must trace in every line to an
undoubted English source, while there are many
pedigrees in the American Short-horn Herd Book,
especially in the earlier volumes, which trace
to beasts whose history is unknown, and which
goes out in this country. Such pedigrees are
said to run to the ''American woods," and this
is quite universally regarded as a fatal blemish.
We may say, then, that a pedigree to be a good
pedigree must at least be conformable to the
records of the standard book of registry ; that
is, it must either be recorded therein. or only
need to be offered for registry to be recorded.
This is absolutely necessary. But many ani-

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 253

mals will be found which through some flaw,
neglect, or error, though highly bred and of
high merit, are not admissible for record. Are
these to be passed over? Certainly. It may be
unfortunate that such animals should be dis-
qualified, but it is necessary to the purity of
blood that all records should be strictly accu-
rate, and men who neglect their cattle must
suffer for it. The buyer should strictly avoid
such cattle. There are many such in the coun-
try. I have spent many days of work trying
to straighten out such pedigrees for friends who
have sent them to me. Some have only been
slightly neglected; others are hopelessly in the
class of "lost records." But it is not enough
for the buyer to avoid these; 'he must learn
what pedigrees of those in the records are ques-
tionable, and avoid them also. There are some
in connection with which forgeries have come
to light; others — in early days a not uncommon
class — have at the end of the pedigree proper
—that is, after the last dam — the pedigree of
her sire appended as if it were her pedigree,
giving an apparently excellent pedigree to a
cow that was really only a half-breed, at least
so far as any record goes. When every sort of
bad pedigree is sifted out then the residuum
may be taken as good. But this sifting process
is a slow and difficult one, and the requisite
knowledge for. it is only acquired after years of

254 CATTLE-BREEDING.

study. Then when this is done there are so
many families left that every breeder naturally
asks, Which of the good ones are best ? So it is
generally easier for the beginner to begin at the
other end and learn of some one well versed in
matters of pedigree what families are particu-
larly esteemed and the grounds for their prom-
inence. This may seem as if it were leaving
too much to others; but this is inevitable. No
beginner can without aid and instruction hope
to master the subtleties of pedigree. It is a
recondite science of which few, very few in-
deed, are masters. A man is very fortunate,
and he must have been very studious, if he is,
after ten or twelve years of active breeding,
accompanied by constant study, possessed of a
good working knowledge of pedigrees such as
will insure him against making mistakes. The
tyro must needs learn not merely from books —
and there is nothing so colorless as a book of
record — but from those more learned in the art
than he, and to gain any working or practical
mastery of the subject experience is absolutely
indispensable. The beginner will generally find
it the safest way to begin, therefore, to go to
some old breeder of recognized knowledge and
position, and of thorough reliability, and act-
ing on his advice learn from him a first object
lesson.
Is it, then, impossible to lay down any safe

SELECTION OP BREEDING ANIMALS. 255

practical rules for the guidance of the uniniti-
ated? Yes, and no. A few rules of a general,
common-sense sort may be given, but it will be
seen that these are quite insufficient for prac-
tical guidance in all cases.

We have already seen what in a general way
should be avoided. Now, naturally growing
out of the fact that the two desiderata are
individual merit and sound pedigree, we find
that in any family the two things which lend
prestige are extraordinary merit and ancient
lineage. Thus in Short-horn families the Prin-
cess tribe holds a position of deserved eminence
because it probably traces its recorded lineage
to a more remote period than any other family;
and of the different sub-families into which the
Princess tribe has divided, the Gwynnes have
won a prominent place on account of great
individual merit. A few years ago in Short-
horn circles the London Duchesses were spe-
cially celebrated. Their then celebrity was due
to the phenomenal excellence of the family and
its success in the show-yard ; but they added
to this, descent from one of Mr. Mason's best
stocks, and they commanded the approval of
all on account of this. These are the two
things to seek for. The seeker may by a little
study acquaint himself with a few of the best
old families, and make himself to a certain
degree familiar with their history down to the

256 CATTLE-BREEDING.

present time and endeavor to find what he
wishes in their number. But the utmost care
will be necessary lest, some undesirable cross
having crept in through the bulls which have
been used on the good old stock, it should prove
to have been in a greater or less degree in-
jured. Too much care cannot be exercised on
this point, and it is safe to say that with re-
spect to most breeds no beginner has or can
have the knowledge or skill to thoroughly
examine and sift a long pedigree. The ramifi-
cations become endless, and the variety and
miscellaneousness of the blood found in most
animals so analyzed as to their breeding is
astonishing, and the analyst inevitably finds
himself at sea without a compass. Where all
is blank to him a practiced eye finds signs and
indications which tell him, almost at a glance,
the contents of the pedigree, and he does not
need to push very far along any pedigree be-
fore he finds a sure footing on familiar ground.
If young and inexperienced breeders had more
frequently in the past consulted honest and
learned breeders before making their purchases
there would not now be so many pitfalls for the
unwary. As it is, many of our best old families
have had so many bad crosses of all imaginable
kinds put on them that only the most expert
can be sure of sailing always in clear water.
Many of these breeders have been deceived by

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 257

designing men, more have sinned out of igno-
rance. Whatever the cause of their error its
result remains the same— the practical ruin
of their cattle.

It is evident, then, that nothing is to be taken
for granted; everything must be based on care-
ful investigation by those possessed of the req-
uisite knowledge, and unless there is some one
to whom the would-be purchaser can go to sup-
ply this knowledge and skill he is likely to
suffer, or at least run a serious risk.

I have sometimes thought a plan could be
devised, and would be eventually, though the
time is doubtless not yet ripe for it, whereby
the various societies of cattle-breeders would
add to their record offices an office of certifi-
cation, frorn which any one would be able to
obtain for a small fee a certified copy of any
given pedigree with a statement as to what it
contained and as to whether it contained any
errors or flaws or not. Such an office if well
conducted could be made most valuable to the
breeding public, and I am inclined to think
that it could easily be made profitable. A few
trained clerks would soon acquire great skill
and would be able to dispatch business with
great rapidity, and it would, moreover, be free
from one of the great sources of expense in
a record office — namely, the expenditures for
printing. The value of such a department to

17

258 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the purchasing public would be great and im-
mediate ; and not less real, if somewhat more
remote, would be the advantage which would
accrue to the whole breeding interest, growing
out of the rapid decrease of bad crosses put on
valuable strains.

While I am no friend of mere fancy and no
advocate of close family lines and monopolies,
I am still of the most entire conviction that to
breed cattle with success the cattle bred from
must, so far as pedigree is concerned, be above
the faintest breath of criticism. I of course do
not mean as to comparisons, which the old prov-
erb truly says, are odious; no stock can escape
the negative criticism which comes from the
ignorant or dishonest puffers who are forever
going about and saying to their fellow breeders,
"Oh! yes, your stock is very fair and tolerably
well bred, but not highly or fashionably bred
as mine is." There is always a certain class
in every business, profession, and calling, who
ignorantly, or knavishly, or boastfully set up
themselves as possessing the only real thing.
Some are honestly self-satisfied and compla-
cently regard all they possess as better than
that possessed by others; others do it "as one
of the tricks of the trade," as they term it,
knowing that silly men are to be found every-
where who do not distinguish the difference
between notoriety and fame; between puffery

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 259

and reputation. Such fancies and foolish no-
tions run their day, bringing with them money
and worldly success to some — indeed, much as a
corner in wheat does — but eventually they fade
away and leave the world almost unaffected by
their advent and departure. I cannot advise
anyone to run after such fancies. On the other
hand, I would warn all to look carefully into the
reason of the popularity of any special family
or tribe, and to take nothing which does not
show good quality and old lineage.

Some families of cattle are the victims of
misrepresentation and malignance. Now and
then in the history of competing fashions
the owners of one family in the bitter spirit
of partisan warfare have attacked the char-
acter of their rivals' cattle, and though some-
times unjustly and even falsely, the barb has
stuck in the flesh. Out of such attacks, re-
peated over and over again by the malicious,
the wiseacres eager to show a little knowledge,
and the blind followers of these two more ac-
tive classes, a fixed doubt has sometimes grown
up making the stock sprung from these families
bad investments although not badly bred. This
is so for the simple reason that as a business
principle no man can afford to deal in goods
that a part of the natural customers of his
trade regard with suspicion. I knew, for in-
stance, a case many years ago of a gentleman

280 CATTLE-BREEDING.

who was rather free in expressing his opinion
of pedigrees and sometimes criticised very
severely those which were then quite popular.
Some of his fellow breeders became very an-
gry and assailed in very bitter words one of his
most esteemed families, the members qf which
were of distinguished merit. He retorted that
they were capable of standing on their own
merits and rather defied criticism. Never-
theless, the evil name was echoed by many
thoughtlessly, and by a few from envious rival-
ry, and in the end this old and esteemed stock
of superb show cattle could hardly find a pur-
chaser at any price; and though this was many
years ago I suppose that family will never re-
gain its former prestige in Central Kentucky,
so long does the memory of such a thing linger
and so sure is a slander to find an envious or a
thoughtless tongue to catch its dying echo and
send it forth on a new mission of cruel wrong.
This is a good instance of the kind of stock a
breeder must avoid with never-wearying watch-
fulness, and in order to keep out of danger
from this source he must know something of
the traditions of the breed he is purchasing as
well as of the records.

It may be said that the very avoidance of such
pedigrees tends to keep alive the prejudice
against them. True, in a certain sense, and
while I regard the words that Tennyson applies

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 261

to the late Prince Albert when he says that he
"spoke no slander; no, nor listened to it," as
almost as high praise as can be given to man,
yet one must never, as a business man, forget
the fundamental law of self-preservation. If
we do not look out for ourselves no one will
look out for us. We may -be pretty sure of that.
And it is a poor kind of charity which buys
the damaged goods of another at the price of
sound ones because we do not want to hurt his
feelings by letting him know that we have dis-
covered the flaws which he doubtless knew all
about. There is a golden mean in all things, a
safe and honest middle ground, in which honest
and upright principles do not yield to, but only
apply, sound business sense. (We must inform
ourselves thoroughly as to the character of the
stock we are about to purchase, and finding
flaws, unjustly attributed defects, or any other
things that would make our purchases unpro-
ductive of profit, we must strictly keep away
from them. We need not go away and tell
everybody about them, nor even whisper them
to the quiet night air ; lest like the man who
had in an unhappy moment learned that King
Midas had the ears of an ass under an injunction
of the deepest secrecy, could not contain it,
and thinking to lift the burden from his heart
without divulging it to the world whispered it
to the reeds by the river bank, only to hear the

262 CATTLE-BREEDING.

reeds re-echoing and the winds laden with his
whispered "King Midas has ass' ears." It is a
true lesson taught by this old world fable that
a secret intrusted to a light and vain mind
might as well be spoken upon the housetop.
Good sense and sound ethics alike condemn the
injury resulting from gossiping about our neigh-
bors' property to their hurt. We have only a
right to investigate and make ourselves, so far
as possible, cognizant of the entire history of
cattle we are thinking of purchasing, and on
the facts learned we may justly form our judg-
ment and guide our conduct.

I am speaking here only of such matters as
come under the head of prejudice. I think
facts, properly speaking, ought as a rule to be
open to public scrutiny. All questions of his-
tory are naturally of a public rather than a
private nature, and should therefore be ac-
cessible to all. All questions of forgery,
tampering with records, etc., are also public
concern, and one who knowingly conceals such
things in most cases makes himself particeps
criminis by the very act. We are, however,
going beyond the proper purview of our sub-
ject here. And yet it is of more importance
to get these matters fairly before the mind of
the new breeder than would appear upon the
surface.

Let us return now with a little more particu-

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 263

larity to the question of selection of the ani-
mals for personal qualities. We have looked
at the question thus far in a broad and general
way. We have seen that personal excellence
and sound pedigree are absolute essentials. But
there are very many animals having these quali-
ties, so we must go to work to make specific
rules for each particular case. Suppose we
were to say that our chief end in selection
would be to get the best we could find; the
question would at once rise, What do you mean
by "best"? Probably no two men are quite at
one on this subject, and the herd if selected by
several men might present a very heterogene-
ous character. Suppose we were to set out and
find a nice little cow four years old, fully ma-
tured, round and plump in every part, neat in
bone to a perfection, weighing 1,200 to 1,300
Ibs., and carrying all she ever would likely
carry in weight; and next a compact, good
young cow of three years old, not yet settled
in shape, and weighing 1,400 to 1,500 Ibs.; and
then a great, massive Scotch-bred cow five
years old, and only just attaining maturity, low
to the ground, tipping the beam at 2,000 Ibs.,
and carrying it evenly and well ; and then a
neat, gay heifer of great style and carriage, a
trifle long in the leg, a shade too flat in the
ribs it may be, but with fine depth and admi-
rable finish. Here are four quite typical Short-

264 CATTLE-BREEDING.

horns. Each sort has its admirers and its
champions. In choosing our herd would we
take in such animals without regard to any-
thing but that all had merit and were good
beasts? This is quite an important point, and
worth something more than a cursory inquiry.
The real question put to us is: Is it desira-
ble to have a special model, or is it rather
preferable to breed in a general way for beef
cattle, or for milk production, and so on? f Now
it is clear that among beef cattle there are
many types. In some there is more substance,
but often with coarser bone and more offal than
in others. Some are fine in bone, gay, and
stylish, but show a less vigorous constitution;
and so on. In dairy cattle some animals pro-
duce large quantities of milk, but of an inferior
quality; others produce milk of singular rich-
ness in butter fats. Are all these varieties to
be mixed and mingled without regard to their
peculiarities? Suppose we have such a lot of
cows, the question is not far away what sort of
bull are we going to use on them? The bull
which will produce good results when crossed
on one will just as likely as not fail on another
-fail to "nick," as the saying is. This thing
of a "nick," or a successful cross, is as difficult
as determining beforehand how much an ani-
mal will inherit from one or the other of its
parents. It is not the same thing, though at

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 265

first sight it might seem to be. It is simply
how will the two parents interfuse ? Both might
be excellent and transmit good qualities to their
common offspring, but the produce ' might fail
in that great essential of evenness, or balance.
We want an animal to be "well balanced"
throughout; not to be phenomenally good in
one point and miserably bad in another. So
this question of "nicking" becomes important,
and we cannot say that because two animals
are fine their offspring must needs be fine.
This we are not at all justified in saying.
Fineness is predicated of a certain balanced
relation of parts. Our law gives us only simi-
larity to parents. But can we not get a little
nearer to the rationale of the matter than by
dismissing it as a question only determinable
by experiment? I think that while an absolute
solution is out of all hope of attainment, in this
as in all else where Nature's laws are carefully
and intelligently observed, we may come to a
useful approximation. How shall we naturally
proceed toward such an approximation?

In the first place it is easily seen that where
there is great diversity among cows, one bull,
however good, can hardly be expected to breed
evenly. A bull of remarkable prepotency may
indeed do well in such circumstances, but even
he would not do excellently well. If of a small,
compact type, he would tend to decrease the

266 CATTLE-BREEDING.

size of the Scotch type alluded to above; while
if of the latter sort he would introduce an ele-
ment of later maturity into some of the other
strains, and in some his own even character and
ability to carry great flesh without coarseness
would appear in that seriously undesirable form.
It is sufficiently evident, then, that some kind
of evenness is desirable in the herd if all the
cows are to be bred to one bull.

But is there not some further advantage to
be found in maintaining a single type? Such,
at least, has been the view of all great breeders.
We may well hesitate to pronounce upon the
relative excellence of the many types found
among the many breeds. It is always danger-
ous to dogmatize. We may follow our own
inclinations, and see in one type a more attrac-
tive form than in some other which may win
the preference from a brother breeder. But
granting this, while we discover one type in its
perfection more pleasing in our sight than any
other, however perfect, nevertheless do we not
often see animals of the esteemed type quite
inferior to those of the other? I am sure all
candid minds see and have felt the difficulty
here. The result is that if we were to go to a
cattle show or other place where a large con-
course of cattle were to be seen and pick out
the best ten head of any given breed, they
would in most cases represent very different,

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 267

and often almost opposite, types. How much
more pleasing to the eye than such a group
would be one such as we often see exhibited
as the get of a single bull — very even and of
singularly striking resemblance. If we are so
blind as not to see the superior excellence of
the best of other types to many, even most, of
our favorite sort, we are in sad need of a visual
cathartic. We ought always to recognize the
good in other kinds, but it is very nearly cer-
tain that any breeder will achieve better re-
sults by taking ten or a dozen animals of one
general type than by picking up helter skelter
as many of the best animals as he can find
without any special regard to each other.

All great breeders have had some ideal to
which they have aimed to attain. That ideal
was perhaps never illustrated in any single
animal in their herd. Their herds gradually
grew toward this ideal, and the average of the
best of their cattle would perhaps more nearly
represent it than any single animal. One
would have the loin, another the crops and
chine, yet another the brisket and shoulders of
the desired beast; but no matchless queen would
show from tip of horn to tail the noble symme-
try that the breeder had made his dream all
his days. In the herd of such an one we may
therefore not unnaturally look for such varia-
tions as would seem under a wise and careful

268 CATTLE-BREEDING.

method of assimilation and modification to be
leading to that high ideal. It is not in a herd
in which all bulls and cows alike are already
reduced to a nearly complete family type that
we look for great breeding. Here good breed-
ing may be done year in and year out; a well-
fixed type may be produced and reproduced;
but we want growth — not mere reproduction.
We have had occasion already to notice that
the conditions of this life demand a struggle
toward progress even from stagnation, for other-
wise decay will in a short time ensue. Wher-
ever this very close resemblance is secured, too,
it is almost always due to one of two causes :
first, the overwhelming influence of a master
mind — a rare, rare thing — and second, to close
in-and-in or line breeding. In the first case the
mind that built is pretty sure to be wise enough
and able enough to maintain the partly per-
fected work and carry it on to an ever-increas-
ing better point; and as we are not likely, any
of us, to belong to this class we need not worry
ourselves about it. As for myself I shall always
be glad to learn of my fellow breeders without
essaying to criticise or instruct them. In *the
second, if the theory of gradual decay resultant
upon in-and-in and close line breeding be true
there is more danger than advantage in begin-
ning by a choice of a lot of animals, however
closely of a common type, even of high excel-
lence, if they are nearly related.

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 269

The idea seemingly intended to be developed
by the great experimenters for our guidance is
simply that a general standard should in prac-
tice be made as narrow and personal as possi-
ble. That is, if all animals within a certain
standard of excellence be esteemed good, we
should still try to form some clear and distinct
idea of which among them are best, and to
aim to reach that standard in practice without
being distracted and drawn off by somebody
else achieving remarkable success in producing
his best. The choice which we will make in
actual purchases will even then seem very un-
like to that made by some who take one or
another of the animals as a standard and com-
pare the most unlike to it. The real thing is
that to reach a desired type you must vary on
every side a little, and by years of careful,
thoughtful breeding gradually attain the ob-
ject sought.

It is perhaps necessary to admit that many
breeders do not really breed with a view to at-
tain such an ideal, but are content to see no
further than the stock before their eyes and to
use what comes to their hands as best they may.
This is only half true. Many of the breeders
who most decidedly scout the idea of their
having any theory or standard in breeding are
the very ones most tied to their own idea and
theory. This is nothing strange ; it is human

270 CATTLE-BREEDING.

nature, pure and simple. Many more of us are
possessed of capacity to act, and to act wisely,
than to reason out the why and wherefore of
such activity on our part. Those who claim to
be mere common-sense breeders are the very
ones most apt to have decided views as to what
is a good animal, and most likely to be utterly
opposed to having any other sort in their herds.
If they, therefore, work along for years with
the same lot of cattle it almost always happens
that at the end of their breeding they have
stamped their stock indellibly with the mark of
their personal preference.

But some, especially young beginners, have
little or no such preconceived ideas and no
definite theory. For them the only safe course
is to select as nearly as they are able a uniform
general type, securing as high a degree of per-
sonal merit as may be possible. Almost every
one will find a certain ingrained taste which
will guide him, and he will need to satisfy that
at the very outset ; and it is of great value to
every young man, in whatever walk of life, that
his taste be formed on the best models. If one
begins by forming his taste on a scrub model
almost any thoroughbred will seem a miracle
of art to him; while to another who begins
with the best of thoroughbred breeds the
other's wonder will be perhaps a sorry and very
undesirable beast. Before any effort at fixing

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 271

on an ideal is made, then, a close and intelli-
gent study of the best results of the best art
among the most successful breeders must be
made.

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS.
(CONTINUED.)

IN addition to the broad and general points
of information in regard to the selection of our
animals there are certain considerations of a
more special character, which are of the first
importance. Chief of these are the matters of
physical nature which enter into every calcula-
tion in regard to the power and regularity of
their reproductive nature. In examining these
questions we must, in a certain sense, regard
the animals just as we might a machine for the
manufacture of a given fabric. It is of no con-
sequence to the purchaser of a machine that it
be made by this or that firm, or that it be called
by this or that name, or bear this or that brand.
The thing he wants to know is whether it is
capable of doing the work which he wishes
to have done. Of course when he has found
that machines of a certain brand or made by a
certain person do better work than any other
he naturally wants to use that kind in future;
so when a man has found that the cattle bred
by one man give the best results he goes to that
man when next he desires to purchase. But
there are certain things that he wants to know

(272)

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 273

in every case. A man may be assured by expe-
rience that the reaper of a certain manufacture
is the best and yet not know whether a new
cultivator from the same house will give satis-
faction, even though he may be sure that so far
as workmanship and materials go it will be of
the best; and even among machines of one class
some are better made than others. A man may
do his best and yet not attain the same or equal
results in all cases; so there are certain things
which it always pays to take a good deal of
pains to make sure of, and there are just such
things to be looked to in selecting breeding
animals.

In the first place, too careful inquiry cannot
be made into the healthfulness of the individ-
ual and the family of which it comes. This is
oftentimes not a mere matter of form. There
is not a little of congenital disease in the best
stock of our country, and this ought to be
guarded against so far as possible. Such forms
as consumption and other types of tuberculosis
are especially to be guarded against, and are
dangerous in that by using a bull when young
with such an inherited taint in his blood we
may infect a whole herd without his having
shown any outward sign of the disease, which
often does not develop for years, lying latent in
the system. Such congenital diseases not only
leave their mark on the animal by infecting

18

274 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the blood and causing the transmission of the
trouble to the latest generations, but they also
leave their mark on the animal's outward form,
and so warn the observer to beware/ The chief
of these warnings is to be read in a narrow and
contracted chest and other outward signs of in-
sufficient room for the pulmonary organs. Sec-
ondary evidences are sometimes apparent in
the dry, hard, and insufficient coats, which indi-
cate a bad circulation. All such evidences of
unthrift are to be looked for, and when found
are to be carefully considered as plainly indi-
cating a want of vigor in the animal. In general
it may be said that the largest possible room is
required wherever the vital organs are situated
for their most healthy action. To speak briefly,
then, the animal that shows a broad, deep chest
with abundant floor room, giving a fine brisket,
a wide chine and full crops, with the region
back of the shoulder well filled out, running
down well to the fore flank, and good barrel
with finely-sprung ribs is the sort that every
one takes as the model of strong and vigorous
constitution, and that is the sort the breeder
wants. Wherever the contrary is found there
is almost sure to be an unthrifty animal. Not
necessarily an unhealthy, but almost invariably
an unthrifty animal. And while the one entails
a direct loss the other deprives the purchaser of
making any profit on the capital invested, which

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 275

is nearly as bad. I always think that there is
little or no profit in a beast with a contracted
chest and that shows a tightness back of the
shoulder. That constricted look, as if a surcin-
gle had been tightly bound around the animal
and had left a permanent impression, is one
especially distasteful to me as indicating this
want of thrift.

But much of this inquiry must needs be left
to the good faith of the person from whom the
purchase is made, unless some unusual chan-
nels of knowledge are open in the special case.
If there are any reasons for fearing any of the
more serious diseases being congenital in the
family the quicker the animal in question is
passed by the better.

But there are other things to be inquired
into besides healthfulness. We have seen in
the earlier part of this book that fecundity
was as heritable as any other quality, and that
infecundity tended to increase in transmission,
and that all unhealthy conditions were of great
danger as inclining to deepen the unfruitful-
ness, generation by generation, till the race
went out in true infertility. There is no worse
taint in the blood of animals when the object
for which they are valued and cultivated is the
reproduction of their kind. It behooves every
one, then, who is about to purchase stock to
make all possible investigation and be sure that

276 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the stock which he buys comes of fecund fam-
ilies. This is not so sure a thing as it would
seem to some. It is too common to think of
animals as always going on like machines—
turning out their one calf every year with only
rare accidents occurring to reduce this ratio of
reproduction. The more highly bred the cat-
tle are and the more artificial the conditions in
which they are kept the more uncertain and
irregular do they become as breeders, without
the introduction of any such special disturbing
cause as hereditary infecundity. With that
reckoned in it is hard to tell how bad the case
may become. And this is not by any means
confined to the females. The inheritability
of infecundity may pass into and along the
male line quite as well as by the female, and
not only may, but it does do so. This is too
rarely taken account of. I should hesitate not
a little before using at the head of my herd a
bull which was the produce of a shy-breeding
dam. That these things are so is the logical
and inevitable consequence of the laws of in-
heritance already inquired into, and we may
generally feel safe in tracing them to their
logical conclusion. Some of us are rather
afraid of deductions from the best settled of
these laws, regarding as we rightly do most
questions in breeding to be dependent upon
facts of observation and inductions therefrom.

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 277

But why should we prolong the labors of inves-
tigation and work out each problem for itself
when a sufficient number of particular cases
have already been observed and accurate gen-
eralizations made upon them? It is the part
of wisdom to act on the light thus at hand,
taking advantage of what we have, and thus
saving ourselves many trying and disastrous
experiments. Nevertheless it seems to many
as if it was placing a great deal of faith in
mental processes to go to the extent of reject-
ing a lusty, well-formed, and active bull be-
cause his dam and grandam were very infecund.
In most cases it will be found indeed that the
bull does not show the lack of power to the
same degree as would the females — certainly
not to the same absolute extent. That were
not to be expected ; it is only in a proportion-
ate degree, being as infecund as compared with
a vigorous bull as a female when compared
with a regular breeder, the practical outcome
of which would be that the bull would prove
increasingly uncertain as a breeder as he grew
older, and gradually, at an early age, lose his
potency. Sometimes this occurs without any
one suspecting the cause, and not infrequently
it is attributed to some other cause quite for-
eign to the true reason.

One need not remind breeders of dairy cattle
how important it is not merely to ascertain,

278 CATTLE-BREEDING.

when possible, the capacity of the animals them-
selves, both for richness and quantity of milk,
but also of their ancestry. This is a practical
every-day matter that is too regularly looked
after to be other than a matter of course. Here
there is a convenient standard, the conformity
to which may be readily tested. Both branches
of the dairying business have reached a point
in their development of tests of excellence
which the owners of breeds kept for other pur-
poses may envy but can hardly hope to imi-
tate. There is no failure among these milk and
butter producers to recognize the further fact
that the bulls used on their cows must come
from dairy families of merit in the line sought
to be developed, whether butter or cheese pro-
duction. In other words, they clearly recog-
nize the principle that one sex holds in abey-
ance, but transmits to the descendants in the
third generation, the secondary sexual qualities
of its ancestor of the opposite sex.

These qualities are all, then, equally applica-
ble to both sexes, and must be sought equally
in each. There are besides certain qualities
chiefly or solely applicable to the bull, and as
the bull plays so large a part in the herd they
are of the first importance. It becomes neces-
sary, therefore, to take up somewhat in detail
some of the important qualities to be sought
in the bull to head the herd.

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 279

In the first place it is to be remembered that
the bull represents fully one-half of the breed-
ing ratio of the herd. He is one of the factors
in every product, and he may be far more 'than
half. If he is a vigorous animal of great pre-
potency it will not be long till it becomes ap-
parent that he represents far more than his
numerical value in the final sum of influence
in determining the form and value of the re-
sults of breeding. This being so the greatest
care and attention must be given to the selec-
tion of a breeding bull ; care to avoid a poor
animal and inferior breeder; care to select a fine
animal and vigorous breeder ; above all. to get
a beast that will prove a superior.breeder.

It is not an easy thing to find just the bull
that fulfills such requirements. On the con-
trary, it is very difficult. Hence the more rea-
son is there that every possible effort should be
enlisted in so important and so difficult a task.
If we are buying a young and untried animal
the difficulties are only increased. Yet I am
not seeking to discourage, only to warn and
equip with the true spirit of trying many before
choosing one. There is no point more essential
to success than the careful selection of a sire.
Let us see, then, what some of the more essen-
tial requirements are. ;

Following the general division of the subject
into individual merit and excellence of pedigree,

280 CATTLE-BREEDING.

we see that if it is desirable that all our breeding
cattle should have the utmost degree of per-
sonal excellence, in the bull it is pre-eminently
necessary. It is possible that even the most
fastidious might be willing, for one or another
reason, to retain a cow of mediocre quality in
the herd; but it is quite inconceivable that any
wise or ordinarily well-informed man should be
willing to breed to a bull of poor quality. It
is nothing less than sowing the wind, and
the reaping will surely be the whirlwind. Not
only ought the bull to have merit of a high
order, but it must be of a sort to commend him
for breeding purposes. One of the essentials
is what we call " masculine character." Just
what is meant by this masculine character is
difficult to explain, and the expression is often
misapprehended. We may say that on the one
hand, while it is by the very terminology of
the phrase distinctly differentiated from any-
thing approaching effeminacy — too delicate
form and finish, or any of those indications of
want of sexual vigor which are specially to be
seen in the steer — it is never to be con-
founded with coarseness. It has nothing in
common with coarseness. Big bones, awkward
build, clumsiness, though sometimes mistaken
for it, are in no sense masculinity. It is rather
the air of active vigor, which is more in what
we might call expression than in shape, were it

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 281

not that it always goes with a strong, well-knit,
close-compacted frame. The head in its bony
frame-work is larger, the neck fuller and more
arching, the body more widely set on the front
legs than in the female ; and then over it all
plays the indescribable air, gay, aggressive,
vigorous, which appeals at once to the eye,
however hard it may be to portray with the
pen. Such a bull will not be likely to "lose
his personality" among the cows. Delicately-
shaped, undersized, and too neatly finished
bulls, and dull, stolid, inactive beasts are not
desirable to breed from, nor are great, rough,
coarse-boned bulls.

Among those qualities which are reckoned
essential characteristics of the particular breed
the breeding bull should want none, or where
such excellence proves unattainable as few as
possible should be lacking, and those of the
smallest consideration. In most of our breeds
those qualities which are regarded as really es-
sential are few, and almost any animal that pre-
tends to merit can exhibit them all. The only
difficulty is to show them in a high degree of
development. So regular are many of the breeds
in reproduction that even this would be by no
means a difficult task if more breeders would pay
stricter attention to choosing bulls with a view
to the cows to which they are to be bred. This
often is quite important. A great rough bull put

282 CATTLE-BREEDING.

upon a herd of neat-boned, undersized cows will
in more cases make ragged calves than good
calves of an average size. Rapid transitions
are not to be desired, nor can rapid and intense-
ly radical changes" be made except at serious
risk. Where a herd has become undersized for
any reason three or four generations are few
enough for the work of increasing the size, and
a medium-sized bull of a closely similar general
type with the cows should be chosen for the
first cross. Thus we find as a general rule we
should choose not merely a fine bull but one
whose type of excellence is closely akin to the
cattle on which he is to be used. Not only so,
but he should in addition be chosen with a view
to improving the cows in some definite particu-
lar. I am always for progress. When we give
up seeking to advance we are sure to begin
a retrograde movement. In choosing a bull,
therefore, we should first study our cows and
analyze their defects and see where they are
most deficient and where most easily improved,
and then seek a sire calculated to raise up from
them descendants far surpassing their dams.
This is no visionary theory. None of us need
fear lest his analysis will not bring to light, if
honestly done, many faults and many flaws which
the right kind of a bull would do much to im-
prove. It is true that it is not always possible
to find just the bull we want for the work, yet

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 283

we very often can, and it is certainly worth the
trial.

As the animal is to be used for breeding his
power of transmitting to his descendants his
own qualities becomes of the highest impor-
tance, and as that depends largely not only on
his physical vigor but on his breeding also, we
must consider the excellence of pedigree next
in order. By excellence of pedigree I would in-
dicate the greatest number of ancestors of the
highest order of merit. The bull should not
want here. The more animals of high quality
from which he can trace his descent and the
nearer they are to the top of the pedigree the
greater is likely to be the bull's capacity for re-
producing his inherited excellence. If this be
not so then the whole idea of pedigree is a de-
lusion and a snare. Pick your animal to breed
from, then, not simply for his own merit, but
look to see where he got that merit, whether
from sire or dam or both, or from some more
remote ancestor, and among rival claimants for
favor choose the one whose sire and dam show
most merit. This has a two-fold significance.
In the first place, under the simple law of in-
heritance we have the rule that "like produces
like," and the longer the type has been fixed—
that is the larger the number of ancestors
conforming to a given standard — the stron-
ger and more invariable is this rule. Not only

284 CATTLE-BREEDING.

so, but in the second place a long fixed type of
this sort exhibits a prepotent power over a less
fixed type. Thus we saw that a highly-bred
bull when bred to a scrub would almost surely
govern and determine the nature of the pro-
duce. This is the extreme case; the variations
are infinite to the point in which two equally
well fixed types meet on an equal footing.
Among these intermediate instances lie all those
many cases in which a poorly-kept-up family
yields to the greater vigor of a more vigorous
family. Thus often in actual practice we find
families bred for generations only for the pur-
pose of keeping up some fancy theory of breed-
ing whose paper results alone are definite, the
animals meantime undergoing all kinds of vicis-
situdes. After a time they are crossed with a
vigorous family bred only for individual merit
and maintaining it and force of character gene-
ration after generation. At once a transforma-
tion results. The cross proves prepotent; the
poor, abused, disorganized stocks yield to the
spell of fresh and unpolluted blood and at once
produce far better offspring than themselves
or than their ancestors for generations. It is
the final result of oft-repeated reproduction of a
combination of qualities which gives prepotency,
and prepotency is the greatest of possessions for
a stock bull.
Nor do I speak rashly, when I claim for ex-

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 285

cellence the power to reproduce excellence, and
for oft-repeated excellence the power to deepen
and quicken in all those having the double
portion of excellence, personal and inherited,
the power of transmitting it with increased
force. There was a time when men looked
more to the paper pedigree for in-and-in crosses
and calculated that prepotency increased di-
rectly as these crosses increased. I believe that
theory has in the main had its day. I am
accustomed to look at the prize lists in Eng-
land and America for the great proof of the
inheritance of prize-winning qualities. Study
the records of the great shows and you will be
astonished to see how surely great prize-win-
ning bulls send prize-winning calves and grand-
calves to stand for them and witness to the
permanence of their powers. Trace back the
pedigree of the great prize-winners of today
and their breeding is seen to be filled with the
records of many a well-won field.

But this great power may be a two-edged
sword. Prepotency may be for evil as well as
for good, though naturally only valued when
for good. But often an. animal is a hopelessly
bad breeder, getting the meanest calves from
the finest cows. This is in the strictest accord
with the law. But instead of being sought it
must be avoided. I have seen the offspring of
most excellent families indelibly stamped with

286 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the evil likeness of a deeply prepotent family
with which they had been crossed. And as this
inheritance extends to all things of form, of
organ, of function, of health and of disease, how
anxious should be the attention given to all
these things. It looks almost as if the risk of
a bad result was so great from an inferior but
prepotent bull that it would be almost better
policy to keep strictly to bulls of little or no
prepotency, leaving it to each individual cow
to determine the chief characteristics of her
progeny. On the other hand, think of the trans-
formation sure to be effected by a great sire of
sturdy powers. The impress of such bulls as
Goldfinder, the old Duke of Airdrie, and Musca-
tooii not only glorified the individual herds to
which they belonged, but marked the local
herds and even spread widely in the whole
state and country.

It is evident, then, that sturdy constitutions
are specially to be desired and the least symp-
toms of disease, or even feebleness of physique
in the smallest matters, are to be stringently
avoided. For in all breeding animals there is
no consideration at all comparable to entire
healthiness.

We must now notice further the relation of
the pedigree to the artificial standard. What
we have seen to apply to all in a general way
applies to the herd bull in tenfold greater force.

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 287

For the least flaw in his pedigree will be at
once communicated to all the produce of the
herd. Like the circles formed by a pebble
dropped into water, the evil goes on ever broad-
ening. We must apply the pedigree rule, then,
not in a broad and general way, seeking only
good animals sprung from others equally good,
but we must study all the requirements of
such artificial standards as our various herd
books, and let no flaw, judged by their stand-
ards, creep into our bull's breeding. Not only
so, but we must inquire not merely of such
standards but also if public opinion has nar-
rowed their lines and confines to the narrowest
limits. Even foolish fancies, where they are
widespread, while we despise them, must not
infrequently be recognized, and if not con-
formed to, at least regarded in so far as to
avoid anything directly under their ban. This
must be done, because in business we must
keep in the front of the market or we will have
a hard time. The principles we sacrifice, if we
are called on to sacrifice ^ny, are in no sense
principles of honest dealing either in act or
thought, but only in reality theories, which,
however sound, must at times yield to the stern
logic of events which is so eminently practical.
As to age, a vigorous young bull is more apt
to give good results than an old and well-tried
bull, because his purchase, though involving

288 CATTLE-BREEDING.

more of risk, yet gives the buyer the greatest
period of usefulness — the vigorous days of early
maturity. If judiciously managed a bull ought
to retain his full vigor till ten years of age, and
in some cases there is a manifest advantage in
buying a thoroughly-tested bull, even though
the price be proportionately high. There is
then no risk of losing a whole year by having
an inferior lot of calves come from a new bull
which fails to reproduce his own good points;
and the risk in many cases far exceeds the
difference in price. But a really excellent
breeding bull can rarely be purchased after he
has made his mark. So that he who seeks a
first-class bull must generally buy a calf and
take the risk of his turning out well. Hence
it is that one needs be so very judicious in the
selection.

To sum up briefly, then, the stock bull should
be of the highest possible merit, according to
the most exacting standard of the breed, show-
ing all those points which indicate constitu-
tional vigor highly developed, healthy and
sprung of healthful parents, highly bred, tracing
through the best families, particularly those
celebrated for producing animals of superior
quality, in every respect conforming to the
established and popular standards "of breeding,
and finally, where data exists for such a con-
clusion, exhibiting prepotency as a breeding

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 289

animal. That sounds like a most formidable
catalogue of requirements, but it contains noth-
ing that is not of the most important nature.
The breeder in actual practice lumps them all
in a general way instead of drawing them out
in a long analysis, but no practical man would
think of foregoing one of them.

Thus far I have spoken of selection exclusively
from the standpoint of the beginner, as offering
the most logical method of discussion, and
because the established breeder can readily
apply to his particular case the principles laid
down. Nevertheless, lest there should seem to
be some lack of definiteness in this most
important matter, a few words of special appli-
cation may perhaps not be out of place.

The text for the fully established breeder is,
Reject fearlessly all poor animals. If heroic
pruning is good for the tree, the same policy is
good for the herd. Let no unworthy animal
be spared. Let the shambles have its own, and
never run the risk of getting the average of the
herd lowered. The mere moral effect of having
a few mean animals in the herd is bad; bad on
the owner by constantly lowering his standard
of excellence, and worse on the purchasers who
want as little to do with mean stock as possible.
Weed out the herd, then, every year, on this
account, but even more because the bad tree
will inevitably yield evil fruit. The poor cattle

19

290 CATTLE-BREEDING.

will almost surely breed as bad or worse. Above
all things do not keep a bull for service which
does not come up to and surpass the standard
of the herd. It is true it may be years at a time
before a bull is bred, even on large farms, which
in all things conforms to the highest standard,
but when he does appear he is a treasure of the
first value. In the meantime we often have
to put up with animals of a lower grade, but
not necessarily with any but truly fine and well-
bred animals; and it should be a real necessity
which is allowed to drive the breeder to accept
anything but a bull of the very highest class.
Unless the standard is placed and kept high there
is no hope of true improvement, and there is an
end, even, of successful breeding. A celebrated
breeder of greyhounds is reported to have
replied, when asked how he managed to breed
so many dogs of such unusual excellence: "I
breed many and hang many." In that answer
was, indeed, the key to success. A very few
out of many are to be retained for breeding
purposes if the highest excellence is to be
reached. Above all things learn to shun the
delicate, unthrifty and weak in constitution.
No animal, however fine, if of feeble constitu-
tion, can be expected to breed well, least of all
can prepotent power be looked for in a bull
of delicate health. And of course, where deli-
cateness runs into positive disease, the dan-

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 291

ger of breeding from them increases in a rapid
ratio.

Aside from these aggressive dangers there are
tendencies to inferior usefulness exhibited by
many animals which impair or destroy their
usefulness in the herd and point them out as
proper subjects for the pruning-knife. Thus
we find among cows often those that are shy
breeders, that are slow to come in heat after
calving, that rarely stand till served several
times, that occasionally lose their calves, and in
the end show a very poor account of profit and
loss. Others are never able to breed a calf as
good as themselves and are a constant source of
disappointment to their owners. So, too, with
the bulls. How frequently do we hear of bulls
being uncertain breeders. Few seem to realize
how much actual loss comes to the breeder
from an uncertain bull. In ten years' time
almost a whole year will be lost; that is to say,
one-tenth less calves will be produced in the
herd.. And yet men will go on using a bull
which will rarely ever get a cow with calf at
the first or even the second or third service. So
some bulls are hopelessly bad breeders. Some
very fine bulls which I have known have been
simply miserable as breeders. Some men do
not seem to grasp the fact that the bull is the
cause of whole crops of mean calves, and will
go on using him and speculate why their luck

292 CATTLE-BREEDING.

should be so bad. It is far from sure that a
good bull will be a good breeder, though that is
the natural and just presumption; but where
the presumption fails the bull should be dis-
posed of promptly.

There is a question often asked in this con-
nection which demands some notice, namely:
whether it is safe to breed from a bull of
vicious temper. We have seen that peculiar-
ities of temper and disposition were equally
transmissible with bodily peculiarities and de-
fects. The natural inference, therefore, would
seem to be that it is dangerous to breed from
a bad-tempered bull. The inference naturally
derived from the theory is, however, to a certain
degree negatived by my experience. I have
never bred nor reared a bad or vicious bull. I
have repeatedly bred cows to dangerous bulls
and never had a dangerous or unruly calf. In
this I speak exclusively of Durham or Short-
horn cattle. I have noted, on the other hand,
that a large proportion of the bulls of such
smaller and more nervous breeds as the Jerseys
were fractious. After long study and frequent
discussion I have reached the conclusion that
very much depends on two considerations: first,
the general balance of the nervous tempera-
ment of the breed; and second, the method -of
treatment pursued from early calf hood; in fine,
the education. In man the nervous, emotional

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 293'

and mental sides of his nature are most prom-
inent, and are most developed by education
and training. Social intercourse almost inevi-
tably develops all the latent elements, and espe-
cially does the struggle for existence and the
constant attrition of tempers among men tend
to bring out all the irascibility natural to them.
But among most animals the contrary is true.
There are of course notable exceptions, of which
the horse in his constant relations with man is
most prominent; but most animals live a life
under domestication the tendency of which is
to make their existence a mere routine of eat-
ing and sleeping, and of this no class of animals
are better examples than Our cattle. And
among cattle the beef breeds, with the tendency
to great bulk and great flesh, the influence of
which even among men is sedative, are par-
ticularly prominent for the placidity of their
character. Excitable and violent tempers are
utterly foreign to such natural constitutions,
though it is perhaps true that all animals, in-
cluding these, are capable of being aroused
even to violent paroxysms of temper.

Temper and all mental states, however, are
not simply inherent and inherited, but they are
largely affected by habit ; in other words, the
natural quality is greatly increased by being
called into frequent activity, and on the other
hand largely weakened by never being exer-

294 CATTLE-BREEDING.

cised. Habit, either pro or con, then, is a large
element in this matter of temper. Children
with naturally outbreaking and violent tem-
pers are often nearly cured of this serious
moral disease under a mild and gentle regimen
which affords no reason for its outbreak and
suppresses the first signs of its rise by prompt
action.

These two ideas are the basis of that treat-
ment or training which seems, at least among
the heavy and plethoric beef breeds, to sup-
press the disposition to temper, even when
inherited; a life of perfect quiet, with full
rations and abundant out-of-door exercise with
such companionship as shall not excite to tem-
per. This is best afforded by allowing the bull
to run with the dry cows already in calf, though
I quite as often supply it by turning the young
bull calves from six months to a year old
in with the old bull, which exercises a patri-
archal oversight over them. But the most
important element is the treatment received
from the human attendants. This must begin
at birth, must be frequent and regular, and
always firm and kind. However kindly a
bull's natural temper may be, however gentle
his inherited disposition, brutal treatment will
be very likely to arouse bad temper in him.
On the other hand, quiet but firm and uninter-
mitting care will in nearly all cases prevent a

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 295

bull ever having an occasion to show temper.
It is not to be supposed that temper will break
out sporadically and totally unprovoked ; that
a bull is going to quit his quiet cud, which he
is placidly meditating upon under the shade
of some wide-branching tree on a fine sum-
mer's day, for the purpose of chasing a man
passing through his paddock for mere love of
mischief. It is only when he has learned by
hard experience that man is his enemy that
such things occur. In nearly all cases the
first outbreak is due to harsh and unwise
treatment, followed up by nervous, timid, and
consequently nearly always unreasoningly vio-
lent treatment, which gradually leads to a con-
stant state of open war. Another large class
of cases spring from accidents due to playful-
ness on the part of the bull and foolish negli-
gence on the part of his keeper. I remember
one particular case which well illustrates the
way these things come about. A young bull
about a year old was being led to the sale-ring
by a man who was not his usual keeper and
who did not know that the animal was very
playful, and had not sense enough to be careful
with a stout youngster whose disposition he
knew nothing about. He was in quite a hurry,
and started off holding the halter loosely by
the end and walking ahead of the bull, and
dragging him whenever he seemed inclined to

296 CATTLE-BREEDING.

stop. The bull was gay and started in a trot,
and the man, feeling the halter loose, hurried
on without ever looking back. Another stable
boy seeing this called to him to look out or the
bull would run away with him and drag him.
Just as he spoke the bull started off, got the
rope wrapped about the man, knocked him off
his feet, and after dragging him a little way
made two or three playful passes at him with
his budding horns, frightening and enraging
the man, who became very violent. Help came
in time to keep either party from doing any
damage of a serious sort, and the bull being
carefully watched and handled never offered
afterwards the least violence to his keepers.
A little violence on the part of the rescued
keeper might have begun a life of dread and
retaliation on the part of the bull.

Believing, then, that the temper of a bull is
thus so largely dependent on keep and care, I
am not inclined to say that it is dangerous and
undesirable ever to breed to a vicious or bad-
tempered bull. Though, of course, in some of
the small breeds it is more likely that the tem-
per is transmitted, but among them so few are
other than dangerous that it would be almost
impossible to follow such advice were it to be
given. Nevertheless, other things being equal,
I should always choose a gentle bull to breed
to. Of course here I speak only as regards the

SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 297

descendants. As for keeping a bad bull, I con-
sider nothing more dangerous and undesirable;
I would never for a moment think of doing
such a thing. It is a duty to ourselves, our
servants, and the public, to be very careful how
we harbor dangerous animals.

SHELTER.

THE subject of shelter is fundamental in any
discussion of the general care of cattle under
domestication, and yet it is one of those sub-
jects concerning which there has long been
much difference of opinion — a difference which
is not likely soon to be reconciled. The vary-
ing circumstances of highly-developed and
newly-settled parts of our country, of mild
and severe climates, which we have so closely
connected by reason of the intimate connection
between distant sections of the country secured
by the railway and postal facilities of today,
render this difference of opinion far more radi-
cal in appearance than it really is. It is quite
natural that a Massachusetts farmer should have
a different idea as to the amount and character
of the shelter which stock need in winter from
that entertained by a brother farmer in Ken-
tucky, or even from that held by another in
nearly the same latitude in Dakota. The rela-
tive nature of all such questions must be dis-
tinctly appreciated and the proper corrections
made for differences in latitude and longitude.

There is another factor which makes a great
deal of difference in our estimates of the requi-

SHELTER. 299

site amount of shelter for cattle — the purpose
for which the stock are kept. If they are mar-
ket cattle in course of fattening for the sham-
bles the great consideration is, How can they be
kept and fattened so as to attain a maximum
weight at a minimum cost? — this cost being
resolvable into three elements: length of time
which they are kept, amount and character of
food which they consume, and value of land
and buildings which they occupy while being
fed. If, on the other hand, they are breeding
cattle, there are other considerations of equal
importance with that of maintaining the cattle
in average condition, which is the most obvious
and often the only consideration recognized by
the owner. The general health of the animals
has to be considered from the standpoint of
securing from them the best calves at the least
cost of drain on their systems; and secondly, of
maintaining in the breed a maximum of vigor.
This latter consideration is too often over-
looked, and the former not infrequently. Let
me illustrate.

Ease, comfort and luxury, it is now well un-
derstood among men, while in the first place
conducing to produce a sense of content that
has the specious appearance of the painless un-
consciousness of body which is the concomitant
of perfect health, nevertheless rapidly enervates
and lead to a lassitude which invites disease.

300 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Over-indulgence in a life of ease and freedom
from exertion almost inevitably leads to a low
condition of the system. This in breeding ani-
mals is scarcely less dangerous than a state of
actual disease, for the young come into the
world feeble weaklings, unworthy, too often in-
capable, of reproducing their kind. We must,
then, always keep in mind the purpose for
which breeding cattle are kept, and treat them
in a way which shall make them strong and
active, and not pamper them till they grow
even less strong generation by generation, till
at last they become profitless and effete.

It will readily be seen, then, that where one
class are intended for a brief life of from two
and a half to four years, and the one end of the
owner is to push them to maturity and a cer-
tain market condition and weight, that the
chief consideration he has to keep in mind is
the constant healthy state of the animal. But
the breeder has to consider the healthfulness of
his animals not only today, but even more, the
relation of their condition today to a healthy
progeny in the future. All authorities agree,
moreover, that the more artificial the life an
animal leads the more unhealthful is its gen-
eral tendency and the more special dangers are
encountered, and consequently that the more
closely a life of domestication can be made to
conform to nature the more healthful it will

SHELTER. 301

be. Of course two of the great destructive
agents in nature's economy are universally to
be removed — the periodical scarcity of proper
food and the assaults of natural foes. To these
we may add the protection of the animal from
the more violent extremes of the weather. A
large proportion of animals in a state of nature
fall victims to these causes. To secure for
them immunity from them is consequently to
give them greatly-increased opportunities for
growth, long life, and reproduction, provided
always that in removing one baleful influence
we do not set another in motion. To avoid this
it is necessary to leave the animal as far as may
be free from unnatural interference after pro-
tecting it from active foes and supplying with
a liberal hand its needs. This preserves the
robust constitution, the active temperament,
the highest bodily vigor — all qualities of the
first importance among breeding animals.

Taking this broad proposition and applying
it to questions of shelter we arrive at a general
law which may be briefly summed up as follows:
"stable the breeding stock as little as is consist-
ent with health." How much this will be will
depend on the climate of various places. As
there is nothing more miserable to look upon
than a herd of cattle shivering in a wet, cold
storm in midwinter, with tails to the blast and
heads bent woefully to the ground, so there is

302 CATTLE-BREEDING.

nothing which empties the food-trough or, in
other words, which takes so much of the food
the animal eats to make warmth and merely
keep life going, as exposure. Too much of this
will exhaust the animal's nature and burn out
the life slowly, if not more rapidly in some active
pulmonary disease. Nevertheless some degree
of exposure is necessary to enable animals to
face the vicissitudes of life, and the great ques-
tion is how much ? For my herd, here in Central
Kentucky, experience has taught me that the
dry cows can stand all weather except a half
dozen very cold clays in midwinter, not only
without injury, but to their eminent advantage.
From this outdoor life they gain in health and
transmit to their offspring constitutions unim-
paired, so that the young bulls are able to go
out to the far West and compete with the
sturdiest in ability to meet cold and storm. The
pity that is moved by the miserable picture of
discomfort presented by a herd of cows in a cold
January rain is then not so truly pitiful as that
which sees in it a necessary evil of life which
brings advantage both to the enduring clam
and her yet unborn progeny. But on the other
hand, it is obvious that in Minnesota and equally
high latitudes a constant and warm shelter
will be needed for many months each year, the
only important modification being that the
period should be as short as possible.

SHELTER. 303

I have spoken of this matter first because T
think that the injury done to breeding cattle
by too much pampering, especially in over-
stabling, is both very great and very rarely
commented on. I cannot too strongly accen-
tuate the great importance of keeping stock in
as nearly a state of nature as possible. If this
were done there would be fewer weak, consump-
tive animals in the country. True, if this
method of treatment were suddenly adopted
many of the now enfeebled stock would prob-
ably succumb to the exposure; but would it be
any great loss? In our manufactories of steam
boilers, for instance, all the boilers are tested
to see whether they will stand the strain which
they must be subjected to; and, in the testing,
not a few are found wanting. Is the world any
worse off for the loss of the defective boilers?
So I doubt if the world would be any worse off
for the loss of some of the breeding stock which
must be kept alive by a system of preservation
in pink cotton packing.

But shelter is not only largely desirable but
to a great extent absolutely necessary. For all
young animals, except in midsummer, it is
indispensable; for milking cows and for feeding
stock equally so. It needs no more than the
mere mention of the fact as to young stock to
enforce the truth of it. As to milk cattle it is
not so generally understood that cold, damp

304 CATTLE-BREEDING.

weather has an immediate effect on the yield
of milk as it should be. The effect is usually
attributed to the broad, general principle that
food is first supplied to the support of life, and
as one of the incidents of this support of life, to
the supply of fuel to keep up the animal heat;
and in consequence when the demand for fuel
increases, the food which had been devoted to
the formation of milk is deflected to the fuel
supply. While this is true, it is, in addition,
apparently true that a sudden change to a cold,
wet clay, or a sudden exposure, produces a more
instantaneous and radical effect on the milk
supply than is explicable on this theory. The
cold seems to stop the secretion of milk to
a large extent, somewhat as a chill often
checks all the secretions of the organs, of the
body. Thus good authorities estimate the de-
crease of milk at once effected by exposure to
a severe change of weather to be from twenty-
five to forty per cent. This decrease seems,
moreover, not to be checked by a correspond-
ing and instantaneous increase of food; the
effect of the increased food not being felt for
some time after it is eaten owing to the com-
paratively slow process of assimilation.

While in the case of young stock, and to a
minor degree also of old, one of the objects in
affording shelter is to protect against the danger
of illness and injury from frost bites and chills,

SHELTER. 305

its great importance in the management of cat-
tle is due to the service it renders in reducing
the amount of fuel needed by the stock, and
consequently in reducing the amount of food
consumed, the cost of keep, and the time
needed for bringing an animal to maturity.
This applies principally to all young stock
and to beef cattle, but incidentally to all
cattle as well. As an example of how much
food must be used merely to keep up the
animal heat which is mechanically supplied in
the barn, the following experiment with sheep,
which are, perhaps, the best protected against
cold of all our domesticated animals, is very
striking. The case is1 cited by Mr. Nesbit, and
came under his immediate observation. A
Dorsetshire farmer put thirty head of sheep
under a warm shed, and at the same time he
placed another lot of a like number, of the
same weight and condition, in an open field,
where they had no shelter of any kind. The
two lots were fed in exactly the same way, on
an unlimited ration of turnips with coarse fod-
der. The feeding was thus continued through-
out the cold season, and at the end of that
period the sheep being weighed, it appeared
that the sheep which had been fed out of doors
had gained one pound per head for each week
during the experiment, while those under
shelter had consumed less food and yet had

20

306 CATTLE-BREEDING.

gained no less than three pounds per head for
each week of the same period.* The shelter
thus represented, in addition to the saving of
food, the amount of which is not accurately
specified, a gain of sixty pounds per week on
the thirty head, which certainly was sufficient
to more than justify the erection of such a
shed.

The value of shelter for stock being fed for
market has, in addition, the element of keeping
the cattle growing. Periods of stagnation are
always more or less disadvantageous. Stock
kept out of doors through the winter find it
difficult to do more than merely maintain their
full weight even on very liberal feed, while the
same stock stabled nights, for half the time,
would show a substantial gain, and if kept in-
doors all the time a still greater gain. For
cattle intended for the block the margin of
profit has grown so very small of late years that
it is quite important to save all the time and all
the food possible, and two and a half year old
steers well sheltered and kept growing through
the winters will in most cases pay better than
almost any other class. And it is less impor-
tant what sort of a barn steers are kept in than
breeding stock, so long as their supply of pure
fresh air is not cut off.

To return to breeding cattle, even where the

* Quoted by Prof. Stewart, in " Feeding Animals," p. 84.

SHELTER. 307

stock run out all the year it is very desirable
that they should have some sort of shelter
against storms. If nothing more is afforded a
thickly set wind-break of evergreens will give
some protection against the worst wind storms
with their penetrating cold. But it is far better
to have, wherever possible, sheds open to the
south in which the cattle can find refuge from
rain and wind alike, and by huddling closely
together keep warm enough for all ordinary
occasions. These pasture shelters are not nec-
essarily expensive and can be made to afford
great comfort to the stock besides delaying the
beginning of the winter housing and shorten-
ing its duration in the spring.

As to the proper form of cow stable or barn
too many doctors have spoken, only to disagree,
for me to venture to speak with anything
approaching confidence or except in the most
general terms. Very much depends upon the
financial circumstances of the builder, and even
more upon the kind of cattle to be housed, and
the amount of cold they are to contend with.
In the first place, under no circumstances ought
the stable to be so close as to prevent thorough
ventilation and the free entrance of an abun-
dant supply of pure fresh air. Without these
matters are carefully attended to the animals
cannot thrive. Fresh, untainted air is one of
the first conditions of sound bodily health.

308 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Warmth is not inconsistent with pure air,
though many seem to think that a building must
needs be close and stuffy in order to be warm.
It does, no doubt, require more attention and
forethought to secure both, but the result more
than repays the additional outlay. If the stock
are to be housed in a basement, mainly or
entirely under ground, in most cases the air is
sure to be bad and the conditions for thrifty
growth unfavorable. On the other hand, fresh
air need not mean draughts. A warm room with
a sharp cold draught blowing across it is a per-
fect death trap to man and beast, and the
animals will be far healthier if allowed to run
in the cold than if subjected to such conditions.
But neither extreme is at all necessary, and
almost any form of barn can be so constructed
as to avoid these dangerous features.

The first class of considerations in regard to
shelter, then, embrace: first, care lest too great
an amount of shelter be given for the good
of the animal, particularly in the case of breed-
ing stock; secondly, the importance of shelter
to milch cows and cattle in process of feeding
for the market, and thirdly, the importance of
fresh air and thorough ventilation to the cattle.
These relate especially to the health or comfort
of the animals. A second class of considera-
tions present themselves based on the con-
venience of the farmer; but a passing notice
only can be given to them.

SHELTER. 309

The stable which I have found most satis-
factory in this State is of very simple construc-
tion, and represents, perhaps, the minimum,
while the elaborate barns so much used in New
York and other colder climates represent the
maximum, of stable warmth. The two ends in
view in the construction of this stable are con-
venience in feeding and in removing manure;
and as nothing elaborate or expensive, but
only the most strictly practical materials and
methods are used, it offers a fair model for
those who wish a simple and inexpensive
stable. It can be readily modified so as to give
as much more warmth as may be deemed
desirable. It consists of a double row of box-
stalls, ten by twelve feet, each of which are
fitted with two stanchions, so that they may be
used for two animals if necessary. These stalls
are separated by a passage-way six feet wide,
and over, the whole there is a loft for the stor-
ing of feed, which should be as high as the
timbers readily attainable will allow, as the
greater the height the greater the convenience
in handling and storing the feed. In the pas-
sage-way there is a feed -car running on a
wooden track, which can be made to travel
from end to end of the stable with the feed,
and the troughs being on the inside of the
stalls the cattle are fed direct from the car.
The feed is delivered to the car through an

310 CATTLE-BREEDING.

opening in the center of the stable directly
above the track, either by means of a chute or
by being simply dumped from above. The
stalls all open out upon a drive-way formed
by a continuation of the roof outward, which is
further continued until it forms another row
of low stalls, used for calves, which also open
on this drive-way and are boxed in on the rear.
The drive-ways are left open ordinarily in
summer, but the ends are closed in the winter
and in stormy weather by large doors, which
effectually shut out storms and sufficiently close
the building against cold. As stated, the stalls
open on the drive- ways, which form great reser-
voirs of fresh air, and in order to take advan-
tage of this a space of about eighteen inches is
left in the doorway between the top of the door
and the joist above. This insures ventilation—
as the doors do not fit closely below — and avoids
draughts. Even in warm weather these, spaces
afford quite sufficient fresh air for respiration
even when the doors are kept closed for long
periods together, and they are so arranged that
by simply opening them for a few moments the
bad air is quickly expelled and the fund of pure
air thoroughly renewed. While no special
effort is needed in Kentucky to make this
building very tight, it can be made so with
little trouble, as it has a comparatively small
proportion of outside walls and few corners,

SHELTER. 311

and the grain and hay stored above act as a
blanket without giving any of the stuffiness of
a basement to the stalls below.

The floors of all the stalls are made of well-
trodden clay, which is incomparably the best
flooring for any kind of animal to stand on, at
least in my judgment. They all slope slightly
toward the drive-way and there is a small drain
along the edge of the walls. This allows the
liquid manure to drain away and be wasted,
which is, perhaps, not economical and to be
condemned; but in few places in the South and
West has farm economy as yet progressed to a
point at which manure is properly preserved.
The cattle are bedded carefully with clean
wheat or rye straw and the manure is removed
the first thing each morning, being forked from
the stalls to a cart in the drive-way and thence
hauled away.

It is not always convenient to house all the
stock in a single place, as some of the pastures
may be distant from the barnyard, and then
the risk in case of fire is very great when a
large number are sheltered in a single stable.
I have often, for these reasons, found that a
number of box sheds in the different pastures
formed very useful adjuncts to the large barns.
These may be made of any number of stalls
desired, and should always have a small loft
above them to store grain and hay and other

312 CATTLE-BREEDING.

feed. A favorite form with me has three box-
stalls, and is ten by thirty feet in dimension
with a roof of a single slope, affording ample
storage room above. This sort of shed in a lot
where only young heifers or young bulls are
kept is very convenient; and a single box-stall
of a like nature in the lot in which service
bulls are kept ensures them quiet and is very
desirable.

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE.

ALL practical breeders find that it is the little
affairs of every-day life which really demand
the most constant thoughtfulness and cause the
greatest amount of perplexity. This is natu-
ral enough, the more so that in a large degree
these things can only be learned by experi-
ence. Assuming this to be so, not only in a
large degree, but absolutely, those who have
taken the pains to supply manuals for the aid
of the perplexed among agriculturists have
almost entirely neglected the subject of the
practical care of cattle. This is certainly to be
regretted, and the omission needs to be sup-
plied. That this will prove difficult is beyond
question. That it is, therefore, the better
worth attempting is equally certain. I shall,
then, in a running comment endeavor to give
such practical hints as may perhaps prove of
assistance at least to the young and inexperi-
enced breeder. There are many points of view
from which this subject might be approached,
and an analysis from each of these standpoints
would demand a different method of treatment.
It has seemed to me to be most simple and
rational to adopt the view which looks at the

(313)

314 CATTLE-BREEDING.

development of method along the animal's indi-
vidual growth, and makes the discussion of the
methods to be used follow the evolution of the
animal's life history. This will bring before
us all the questions affecting the physical side
of the animal, either directly or indirectly, and
while such questions as those of shelter, feed-
ing, and so forth, demand a more exhaustive
treatment by themselves than can be given in
such a general discussion as is attempted in this
chapter, they will nevertheless require some
mention here, thus entailing a certain amount
of repetition; yet such repetition will be from
the nature of the case illustrative, and may
perhaps be pardoned for this reason and for the
occasional advantage which practical points
gain by the accentuation arising out of such
reiteration.

CALVES.

We cannot begin our care of the individual
animals too soon. The demand for attention
begins not only at birth, but rather some hours
at least before birth actually takes place, in
order that it may be carefully provided that the
dam comes to calving in a safe and suitable
place. This event of entry into even so cold a
world as this of ours is no doubt a highly im-
portant— what men call an "epoch-making"-
event to the youngster so informally ushered in;
and it is scarcely less so to the owner. Every

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 315

provision should be made for a safe arrival and
warm reception. Especially in cold and stormy
weather is this necessary, and when the dam's
labor is long and difficult. In some such cases
it requires not infrequently considerable per-
suasion to get the little stranger to actively
assume the duties of life. In all such cases the
cow should be put in a warm, sheltered spot,
or if this should be neglected, it should be done
as soon as the calf is dropped. In warm and
fair weather this is of course unnecessary; my
experience in this, as in all else, being that the
more natural and inartificial the life the cattle
lead, the better they thrive. Under all circum-
stances it is important to see that the calf is
properly dried. In bad weather unless this is
done,, a chill, which may result seriously, will
almost always occur. Nature has provided her
method for this, and the cow will in almost
every case, do her duty and lick her produce
dry. But should she fail to do this, as some-
times occurs, especially in the case of young
heifers with their first calves, the calf must be
looked after. In almost every case it is only
necessary to attract the dam's attention to her
offspring, when, the maternal instinct being
thereby awakened, she will do her duty. Often-
times it is only necessary to place the calf where
she will see it. Sometimes a little meal or bran
sprinkled over the calf laid in front of the

316 CATTLE-BREEDING.

mother will be the best method, as the cow
will begin to lick off the meal, and once started
the maternal impulse is rarely insufficient. In
some cases, chiefly where the cow is seriously
or fatally affected by calving, artificial means
must be used, which in such instances cannot
be applied too promptly. This licking of the
calf seems to serve not only to dry the calf,,
which in inclement weather is highly essential
to prevent chilling, but also to warm and
quicken the as yet feeble circulation, which as
soon as the genial warmth spreads through the
members leaps into full course.

When the calf has been thoroughly dried and
the cow has had an hour of quiet the next thing
is to see that the calf is suckled. This should
never be neglected. While some calves are
strong enough to get on their feet and suck for
themselves many cannot do so, and it never
pays to take any chances. Wherever the labor
has been tedious and the cow restless the calf
is apt to show the results of it, and where labor
has been greatly prolonged it may not recover
its full strength for several days. These calves
must be held up to suck, and if they do not
suck well at the first trial, frequent opportuni-
ties must be given. Unless this is done many
valuable calves will be sacrificed at the outset.
A strong calf which meets with no adverse
circumstances in the birth-throes of his dam

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 317

rarely needs any special attention after he has
once had a good tug at his mother's teats, and
thenceforth can take care of his own food sup-
plies if only given free access to his dam ; and
it is very important that this free access should
be given. "The child is father to the man" is
one of the most hackneyed of all popular say-
ings; and the very fact that it is so hackneyed
is the best evidence of the general approval
which all men give to the sentiment which it
embodies. So true is it that it not only applies
to man but to all nature. "As the twig is bent
so will the tree incline/' is its exact analogue
in the vegetable kingdom. In fine, as the
young animal or plant is treated the mature
organism will be moulded. The young animal
that is placed in our hands may be said to con-
tain in potential all the qualities of the mature
animal. These qualities may be fostered and
developed, or they may be stunted, hindered
in their expansion, even atrophied by neglect.
It becomes a question, then, at the very outset,
whether the calf is the main consideration with
the breeder, or whether there is some ulterior
consideration more important to him which
shall dominate and control his treatment of
the calf. If the calf gets all the milk he can
drink straight from his dam, and his dam is a
good milker, the chances are he will thrive and
grow and do well. Unless this is the case the

318 CATTLE-BREEDING.

chances are against him. If a little cream or
butter is of more concern to the owner than the
highest good of a valuable calf, of course then
the calf must get on as best he may on some
substitute for mother's milk; but if there is any-
thing which really takes its place I have never
seen it. If possible, then, let the calves have
free and full access to their "base of supplies."
The calf is perhaps best off if allowed to have
free run with his dam for some months. Its
delicate stomach is best suited by frequent
draughts of small quantities of milk. The cow,
on the other hand, is apt to be a better milker
if habituated to less frequent and more perfect
milkings of all the milk in her bag that she can
be made to "let down." Where interests thus
conflict a compromise which will do as nearly
as possible the most even-handed justice to all
is demanded. My system has long been to
allow the calf to run with the cow for three or
four weeks and then to separate them, and from
that time till it is about three months old the
calf is suckled three times a day — morning,
noon, and night — being allowed the first de-
mand on the milk supply, the cow being stripped
after the calf has had its fill. When the calf
is three months old the noon suckling is discon-
tinued and the other two kept up ordinarily till
it has reached the age of six months, which is
the usual age for weaning, although in a few

GENERAL CAKE OF CATTLE. 319

exceptional cases the weaning may be advan-
tageously delayed a little beyond that age.

Earlier than six months I am quite sure it is
unwise to wean calves intended for breeding
purposes. Milk is the natural diet and they
thrive on it better than on anything else, and
not till the calves are fully of that age are they
able to do thoroughly well without it and to
thrive on solid food. The weaning time is in a
great degree a crisis in the calf's life. If cut
off from nature's diet too early bad results not
infrequently ensue; but if allowed to go on to
that period at which in the natural sequence of
events the calf would find his milk ration
more and more insufficient and his capacity to
eat more and more perfect everyday, the transi-
tion, instead of being violent, is at once natural
and easy, and therefore without injurious con-
sequences. The great thing is to keep the
growth of the calf from suffering any check.
If this growth goes right along all is well. If,
however, the weaning is followed by a period
of pining and real need of the milk diet, and
the calf is for a few weeks unthrifty, the effect
will be apparent in the animal's after-life, for
these short periods of retardation in early life
count up largely in the sum. This is not an
easy matter to impress upon many men, and
yet an animal that has an unbroken calfhood of
thrifty growth will mature earlier and develop

320 CATTLE-BREEDING.

more completely the possibilities of its nature
than another which, with equal promise, was
suffered to get again and again out of condition
by unwise saving in the first months of its life.
Even six-months-old calves cannot always be
taken off of their milk, although the utmost
care be used, without showing the effects of it
in a bad way, which is certainly excellent evi-
dence of the very high character of this diet for
the calf. What has just been said, of course,
involves to a certain extent a condemnation
of a skim-milk ration. I must deprecate the
substitution of such a ration for the rnilk direct
from the teats wherever it is not an absolute
necessity. I can but regard it as a poor policy
which sacrifices the best good of a valuable
calf at the most critical time in its life to the
securing of a little cream or butter. A little
retarding of the growth at this period may
mean the difference between being able to
make a sale and not being able to do so. To
command the market the best cattle are neces-
sary. B.ut at the same time no doubt there
are occasions when this sacrifice is, or seems to
be, demanded, and in all such cases the best
that can be done is to yield to the apparent
necessity and find the best substitute. * It must
be distinctly borne in mind, however, that a
calf cannot thoroughly thrive on skim-milk
alone; it is not in technical parlance a "com-

GENERAL OARE OF CATTLE. 821

plete ration"; that is to say, it does not contain
in proper proportion all those elements which
are necessary for the growth and maintenance
of a healthy animal. When skim-milk is fed,
therefore, something must be added to it to
complete its food elements. The most approved
addition to it for very young calves is a little
oil-meal. This adds the " carbo-hydrates " and
other muscle-forming ingredients which are
highly necessary, especially to the young ani-
mal; the oil which it contains acts as a laxa-
tive, also, and overcomes in a safe manner the
tendency of skim-milk to induce constipation.
Wherever it is used it is further highly desir-
able to press on the work of teaching the calves
to eat freely.

Prof. Elliott W. Stewart in his valuable work
on "Feeding Animals" says: "Fresh milk is the
best food for the young calf, and the natural
method of taking it is for the calf to draw it
from the udder of its dam." But he goes on
to say that where this is found impracticable
skim-milk may be used, and "the ration may
be made about as nutritious as the new milk
by adding to it flaxseed gruel, made by boiling
a pint of flaxseed and a pint of oil-meal in ten
to twelve quarts of water, or flaxseed alone in
six times its bulk of water. Mix this one to
three parts with skim-milk; feed blood warm."
No doubt good results have been and are con-

21

322 CATTLE-BREEDING."

stantly being secured by feeding such a ration,
but I cannot give up the good old-fashioned
way without a protest, and I would urge, espe-
cially on the breeders of blooded cattle, the
maintenance of the time-honored custom.

In any case the calves should be taught to
eat as early as possible, for it is important to
supplement the milk ration both in quantity
and in variety as soon as practicable. By the
time the calves are two months old they will
nibble at the grass in the fields and pick at
hay which can be conveniently reached; and
very soon after that age they will begin to eat a
little corn-meal and bran very readily. When
once they have fairly begun to eat they make
rapid progress. By the time they are three
months old they should have two regular feeds
of dry food. Corn-meal is a good thing to begin
on, and the daily feeds should consist of as
much as they will eat up clean. As they pro-
gress both quantity and variety should increase ;
bran and oats, chopped hay, and any green food
or roots usually fed, that may be available.
It is generally a safe rule to feed the calves,
both before and after weaning, all the food
they will eat; but it should be carefully
looked to that they do eat all that is given
them and that none remains in the troughs
and feed-boxes to grow sour, when cooked or
other food that is likely to ferment is being

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 328

fed. A careful watch must be kept over the
calves, too, especially where their dams are
large milkers, and at the first symptoms of
scouring the amount of food should be reduced.
In young calves this will generally be caused by
an over-abundant supply of milk ; in older calves
by too much green food. The cause is gener-
ally easily detected and should be removed at
once. It rarely takes more than a few days of
quiet and reduced rations, or of dry and cool-
ing, in lieu of heating, food, to correct these
disorders of the bowels. Of course such troub-
les are chiefly experienced in the hot summer
months or the days of lassitude in the early
spring.

After the calves have been weaned they are
past the first epoch in their lives, and may be
regarded as out of the period of special care ;
nevertheless during the whole course of growth
and development the feeder's attention should
not lag for an instant. During all this period
every effort should be made to bring out all
there is in the animals. The feeder for mar-
ket has learned how large is the return on beef
cattle for liberal feeding in early life. This is
a lesson the feeder of breeding cattle needs to
learn far more thoroughly than he has hitherto.
Many animals which possessed admirable possi-
bilities have had their growth and development
so checked by scanty rations at this critical

824 CATTLE-BREEDING.

period that they have grown up stunted and
half -starved beasts. Two full feeds a day of
the most nutritious food should be given both
male and female, and every provision for good,
healthy growth should be supplied. Among
the provisions which I esteem as essential are
an abundance of clean and wholesome water.
There is jio more important condition of health-
ful life than a suitable water supply, and there
is probably no condition more generally neg-
lected. Cattle often show strange preferences,
speaking from a human standpoint, as to their
water. Thus they will frequently cross a run-
ning stream, a creek, or a spring branch to
drink out of a pond of standing water. This is
doubtless due to their preferring the higher
temperature of the pond water to the cold wa-
ter of the stream. This naturally leads to the
conclusion that very cold water is not desirable
for stock. This conclusion is further supported
by the well-settled physiological fact that cold
water in any large quantity is injurious to the
digestive processes, retarding, and if the chill
occasioned by it is great, temporarily stopping
them. Hence as far as possible the water given
the stock should not be very cold.

Another provision which needs to be insisted
on is abundance of out-of-door life. This is im-
portant for two reasons: First, because exercise
is a positive condition of health in all higher

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. |825

animals; and second, because the close air and
the restricted space of stables are exceedingly
injurious to animals. With very small calves
dropped in midwinter constant stabling is no
doubt for a time an absolute necessity. They
ought not to be unnecessarily exposed to the
inclemency of the weather, but as soon as they
can safely be out of doors they should have a
daily outing, sufficient for exercise and for the
acquisition of a sturdy constitution. As for
summer calves there ,is rarely any need for
them to be stabled at all till they are large
enough to be put up for a part of each day to
be fed, which I find the most profitable way to
feed them. They should have ready access to a
grass lot, which should be clean and free from
mud, and large enough to afford good oppor-
tunity for healthful exercise, and not a mere
pen. There should be besides an abundance of
shade to protect the calves in the hot summer
days from the direct rays of the sun.

Just how much out-door life shall be given
the calves must depend on circumstances. It
should be kept in mind, however, that the laws
of nature should never be violated except for
some good and sufficient reason. As the nat-
ural condition of cattle is one of unrestrained
out-of-door life, the aim of the breeder should
be to approximate this as nearly as may be.
Of course in the excessive cold winters of the

326 CATTLE-BREEDING.

Northern sections of this country this is not to
be followed absolutely, for the cattle were not
originally subject to such excessive cold, and
would not thrive or prove profitable if exposed
to it, but would suffer greatly and in many
cases perish from exposure. Where man has
modified the surroundings by transportation or
other means he must adapt the other conditions
of life to meet these changes. Hence in many
cases continued stabling through the whole
winter is necessary, and in others for the win-
ter nights. These modifications are naturally
yielded to as imperative. But stabling is often
carried much farther than is absolutely neces-
sary; much farther than is good, I fear, for the
constitution of the animals. I seek to have the
animals out of doors at least half the time. In
the day-time in winter of course, and at night
in summer when it is cooler in the pastures and
the stock are not troubled, as they often are in
the day-time, with flies. If the stables are close
and hot of course it is open for consideration
whether the calves are not better off in a shady
pasture with an abundance of water near at
hand than in the stables. Unless there is some
special reason for it I do not ordinarily stable
the calves at all in the warm months. Bat if
they are being prepared for the autumn fairs
they must be put in condition and their coats
attended to, and this practically necessitates

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 327

stabling them during the day. If the stables
are very hot the calves will not thrive and a
compromise may be made by putting them in
any convenient shed which is capable of giving
shelter from the sun and a circulation of air.
The open' air and plenty of exercise I regard as
one of the prime factors in making thrifty,
vigorous animals.

As the calves approach a year old those that
are the best feeders will begin to take on too
much flesh for a good breeding condition on the
liberal feeding herein advocated. This is espe-
cially true of the heifers. As soon as this
appears to be the case they should be fed only
once a day if on good pasture, or if confined
principally or entirely to in-door feeding the
supply should be gradually reduced to such an
amount as will keep up strong, steady growth
without causing too much fat-production. The
young animals want solid growth, bone, muscle
and general lean meat-production at this period,
without the addition of any surplus flesh. The
heifers need to be watched with special care as
they grow to be from fifteen to eighteen months
old and approach the time when they are to be
bred. It is particularly desirable that they
should come to this time in as natural a physi-
cal condition as possible. Obesity, overheated
'state of the blood from an excessive corn diet or
an over-supply of other heating food, and other

328 CATTLE-BREEDING.

similar unhealthy states are very apt to make
the heifers shy or uncertain breeders, and very
difficult to get with calf. With the young bulls
the case is somewhat different, for while it is
not desirable to have them in high flesh they
must be kept growing vigorously, and if they
are used early they will demand rather more
food after they are put to service than before.
Hence at the time that young heifers are being
cut down in ration the bulls between one and
two years will very likely need to be fed a lit-
tle more. High-fleshed heifers, where they
have good pasturage, will often be better off if
not fed at all in addition to their grazing ; but
young bulls in order to retain the highest vigor
must be regularly fed on grain.

One of the questions which thrusts itself upon
us in regard to young stock is as to the wisdom
or unwisdom of fitting them for the fairs. To
speak in broad and general terms I regard
obesity as always an evil and often a serious
danger; and our fairs in nearly all cases seem
to demand a high condition of flesh, amounting
in most cases to obesity, as a condition of suc-
cess; yet it must be admitted that under a year
old there is little serious risk in preparing stock
for the show-ring. Yearlings fall into a very
different category, and as they are in the most
critical epoch, especially for the females, the
greatest care and prudence is demanded. It

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 329

must be kept in view that overflesh very readily
runs into disease, and that fatty degeneration
is more apt to attack the reproductive organs
than any other part of the animal organism.
As the animals which it is desired to fit for the
show-ring are sure to be those of the highest
personal merit, they are, therefore, the very
ones most valuable for breeding, and the very
last ones which ought to be subjected to the
perils of a show-yard training and feeding. I
feel sure that even where many go through the
ordeal successfully, that the most desirable
breeding animals are those which have never
been overfed, and whose systems have never
been put to a strain by the application of any
unnatural methods; those, in fine, which have
gone on year in and year out in the even tenor
of their way, living in peace and plenty in all
seasons, and reproducing themselves annually
with credit. Such beasts, I am confident, breed
better and breed longer than those which are
treated to long periods of excessive feeding for
the show-ring.

The calves are decidedly better for being kept
apart from the older cattle. I think as a gen-
eral rule, that cattle of the same age or condi-
tion do best when kept to themselves. This
applies with especial force to the young stock.
There is thus much less risk of accidents and
injuries than when cattle of all ages are herded

330 CATTLE-BREEDING.

together. Of course, too, the young bulls — at
from three to four months old, as soon as they
begin to worry themselves and fret the heifers-
must be put in a lot by themselves. Otherwise
they will not grow and thrive as well, nor will
they allow the heifers to do as well, as when
both are in quiet pastures living a life as free
from disturbances and excitements as it is pos-
sible to make it. The run of the young bulls
should be well removed and secluded so that
they may not be in sight, smell or hearing of
cows and heifers in heat, for if they are they
will fret and chafe themselves and lose instead
of gaining in flesh.

These provisions for the general good of the
stock have also a commercial advantage which
is worth noticing. There is nothing which
plays a greater part in the sale of pure-bred
animals than the mere captivation of the eye.
This, indeed, goes further than mere blooded
stock sales, but it is especially notable in regard
to them. A prospective purchaser going into
an enclosure containing animals of all ages and
conditions, old and young, mature and imma-
ture, thin and fat, is confused; his eye wanders
aimlessly, and unless he has a far better trained
eye than most men possess he will get but a
vague and indefinite idea of the cattle in-
spected. But if the calves are in one enclos-
ure, the young bulls in another, the yearling

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 331

heifers in a third, the two-year-olds in a fourth,
and so on through the dry and milking cows,
etc., each class speaks for itself. The impres-
sion is one of symmetry and congruity. If the
purchaser is in search of yearling heifers his
mind is not distracted by the superior impres-
sion made by the greater maturity of two-year-
olds ready to calve which stand alongside. All
who have dealt in market cattle know the su-
perior selling qualities of a very even bunch of
cattle. It is much the same principle here, ex-
cept that the element of beauty of form is of
far higher — almost of the highest — importance
in the case of blooded stock.

For the best results in raising young stock I
have already said that it is highly important to
keep them as quiet and as far removed from
excitement of every sort as possible. In order
to secure this the animals must be handled sys-
tematically from birth, habituated to the pres-
ence of man — made to regard him as a purely
beneficent being. Gentleness is almost a sine
qua non of thrift. An animal that is being
frightened constantly, that will bolt out of the
stall leaving a half -emptied feed box behind it
at the least approach of man, that will race
around the pasture whenever an attempt is
made to drive it up to feed or for any other
purpose, is not likely to yield satisfactory re-
sults. They should be familiarly handled from

332 CATTLE-BREEDING.

birth, and always with gentleness coupled
with firmness. The bull calves should espe-
cially be dealt with in the most careful way,
never being struck or kicked and handled only
in the kindest way. There need never be any
trouble with an animal that is begun with early
enough and dealt with kindly and firmly.
Every calf should be thoroughly halter-broken
before it is strong enough to make any serious
resistance, and taught thus early that the pro-
cess is one which involves nothing either of
pain or discomfort, but is a mere concomitant
of every-day life. Then when a calf is sold, or
is to be exhibited, it will not require half a dozen
men and a "battle royal" to get the calf to go
anywhere. All of which means that the calf
is neither contrary nor stubborn but utterly
ignorant of what it is wanted to do, and too
frightened to know how to do anything but
make wild and totally blind efforts to escape.
Instead of the calf being to blame it is the
owner who has neglected its proper training
and entailed on it and himself this wild and
senseless struggle. Submission is a matter of
education and may be carried to any point that
the owner may desire, provided that he begins
early enough and proceeds with sufficient firm-
ness and method. And the more absolute the
submission on the part of the animal the
smaller the amount of friction and the better

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 383

the results throughout the animal's life. Many
an accident happens because calves are not
properly broken to lead; many a young bull's
temper is spoiled; many a young heifer loses
her calf because she will not submit to the
necessary human aid in securing a successful
deliverance. Reckless methods, driving with
stick and stone, are utterly to be condemned,
and constant handling and the most familiar
intercourse between man and beast is the one
and only policy which leads to success. If I
take my seat in the lot where my young heifers
have their grazing they will gather around me,
and push each other aside for the friendly
scratch on the back which they expect, and if
they do not get it will sometimes rub up against
me. This is the sort of terms which in my
judgment should exist between master and
brute.

HEIFERS.

The word heifer is a somewhat indefinite ex-
pression, being defined by the dictionaries to be
"a young cow." For practical purposes heifer-
hood, which generally may be said to be a some-
what indefinite period lying between calfhood
and maturity, may be taken to be the period
between about one year old and the production
of the first calf. In this period the animal's life
is somewhat different in its aspects, alike from

834

CATTLE-BREEDINGS

that which precedes and that which follows.
Soon after it is a year old the animal is treated
with a view to the approach of the time when
she shall be bred; as when once she has assumed
the duties of motherhood, though not yet in
most cases mature, or to be fully mature for
two years or more, she is fairly become a cow.
The aim in life of the heifer, then, is reproduc-
tion of her kind, and the treatment she is to
meet with must always have this idea in view.
To make life one unvarying round is, therefore,
the great object. Monotony is no wearing thing
in an animal's life story; on the contrary, when
made up of unvarying comfort and plenty, and
a strict avoidance of every disturbing element,
it is the ideal life for the dumb brute ; the sum-
mum bomim of the purely physical existence.
This is no easy thing to attain. Men are not
machines, neither are cattle. You cannot set
a man, as you can a wheat drill, so that he will
give out just so much, no more, no less, through-
out the year; nor can you regulate the stock to
eat just one amount daily, or to be contented
and thrifty on a single kind of food. We must
deal with them as individuals ; we must look
constantly to see that each has enough without
having too much. That the heifer maintains
good flesh and good health ; that she does not
grow too fat in summer nor too lean in winter,
or at any other time of year. That, in short,

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 335

plenty and scarcity on the farm do not rotate;
and if they do in the fields — for ba"d seasons will
come — that they do not in the feed-box. It is
one of the most frequently repeated charges of
the many made against cattle-breeders, that
they do not give this unvarying attention to
their stock; that they especially do not provide
for them properly in the late winter and early
spring. Now it is of the utmost importance
that all the stock should have this regular care
and attention, but it seems to me especially
necessary for the heifers. They are still as
much in a formative state as in calfhood. Their
possibilities are half developed and their prom-
ise may be checked and made to come to naught
by neglect or abuse at this time more than at
almost any other period of their lives. Their
growth must be kept up by abundant feeding,
and the time for breeding them must be deter-
mined by their development with a care which
shall studiously consider the danger on the one
hand of breeding so Dearly as to check and im-
pair the physical development, or so late as to
permit the possible supervening of some trouble
which shall make them shy in breeding. Very
thin and very fat heifers are alike undesirable
for breeding purposes. Very thin animals lack
vitality and demand too large a part of all the
food they get to insure a proper supply of it
going to develop a healthy calf. Very fleshy

336 CATTLE-BREEDING.

heifers, on the other hand, are in a large number
of cases difficult to get to stand, and fat cows
are likely to produce very small calves. What
is desired is good condition without running to
either extreme. To secure this it is only neces- .
sary to deal with each animal as an independ-
ent organism, and feed just as much as is
found necessary and no more. To feed a num-
ber of animals on a general average rule often
succeeds, but when it does fail it is often in the
most unfortunate way, for it gets the easy feed-
ers too high in flesh and they are hard to re-
duce, and it lets the poor feeders drop behind
and they are hard to bring up.

In regard to the age at which a heifer should
be bred much depends on the breed, and still
more on the actual maturity of each individual
animal. Some of the smaller breeds mature
earlier than the others and should be bred ear-
lier. The Jerseys and other Channel Island
cattle are good illustrations of this class. The
Short-horns may be taken as a mean between
these and some of the later maturing breeds.
My experience with Short-horn heifers is
that they should be bred at about eighteen
months old. Certainly it is rarely for their
ultimate good to be bred earlier than that age.
If the heifers are small or backward in any way
it is often advantageous to delay breeding from
one to three months later. Much depends on

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 337

the time of calving in the development attained
by an animal. Calves which are dropped in
the late fall and early winter can rarely com-
pete at eighteen months old with those calved
in the spring. When the equation of one calf's
life is made up of two winters and a summer
it can hardly be expected to compare favorably
with that of another which is made up of two
summers and a winter. Hence, full allowances
must always be made for such things. In a
colder climate, too, maturity is retarded; in a
warmer climate it is hastened. I speak for my
own latitude and give only an average. It will
rarely be found advisable to delay the time of
breeding so late as until the heifer is twenty-
four months old. Two years old is late enough
to be a little risky and more time may be lost
by several services being required to get such a
heifer to stand, if no more serious evil results.
Of course no heifer ought to be pushed into the
drains of motherhood till her development is
sufficient to warrant it, but few heifers are so
backward as not to be quite prepared for such
drains by the time they are thirty months old.
Wherever practicable young heifers should
be bred to young bulls. Old bulls are in most
cases too heavy to be safe, and serious dangers
are often incurred by breeding to them. I have
had heifers killed by the service of a heavy old
bull, and less serious injuries are more com-

338 CATTLE-BREEDING.

mon. Of course, in a majority of cases if due
care is used such accidents will not occur, but
they do occur sometimes despite the utmost
foresight, and it is wisest to avoid even such
possibilities. Where there is no young bull
available and an old one must perforce be
used, he should in no case be allowed to serve
the heifer more than once. A yearling or two-
year-old bull is always greatly to be desired for
the first service of young females.

When the heifers are eighteen to twenty-
four months old, and safely in calf, all that
they require in this latitude is good pasturage
in summer — such as our blue grass so richly
affords — and, in winter, hay and corn-fodder in
addition to the scanty food afforded by the
winter fields, fed out of doors in racks, or, in the
case of the corn-fodder, fed on the ground by
being forked out each morning from a wagon.
As no more fodder is fed than the cattle eat up
cleanly, and the strong turf of the blue grass
makes it possible to feed it in a clean spot, there
is no waste from this method. I find such fare
ample to keep heifers and dry cows in good
condition. Where the winter is severe they
may profitably be housed at night, though I do
this as little as possible, and where they do not
keep in good condition on the above described
diet it should be supplemented with such grain
as the case demands.

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 339

As the time of parturition approaches espe-
cial attention is demanded. If the time of the
year is late winter or early spring, and the
animal shows the lassitude and general weak-
ness of the system so generally incident to this
time of year, it is well to fortify the system by
a little toning up. For this purpose a little
grain fed daily for three to four weeks before
calving is the best tonic. It is not desirable to
feed anything that is heating, and therefore
chopped oats, wheat bran, or middlings, with a
little oil-cake or flaxseed, is most desirable.
Nature is generally at a low ebb at this period
and this course has been found very desirable
with mares and other animals as well as cows.
If, however, the period falls a little later an
exactly opposite danger is to be apprehended.
When the newr vigor of the spring and early
summer is abroad in the land, and the animals
are lusty and full-blooded from the abundance
of rich pasturage, the blood is often in a fever-
ish condition, and if some cooling anti-febrile
remedy is not giyen at the time of calving,
puerperal or milk-fever is very likely to ensue.
May and June are the months in which this
much-dreaded disease is most likely to attack
the cows, and during those months it should be
most carefully guarded against. It is most
liable to attack those that are in high flesh and
that are large milkers, and where these condi-

840 CATTLE-BREEDING.

tions are combined in one animal great care
should be given to it to guard against this
trouble.

In addition to these general subjects of atten-
tion young cows with their first calves are often
very restless from the time that the premoni-
tory pains of labor begin to come on. As the
moment of calving draws near this often
increases to a great extent, and the heifer will
lie down and then jump up and run about, and
often will bring forth her calf when standing
up, always imperiling the calf; and too often
killing it.

CALVING.

There is 'no special difference in the treat-
ment required by heifers and cows at the time
of calving except that the former require a little
more watching, and as the act of bringing forth
her first-born ushers the heifer, as it were, into
the fuller life of maturity, the subject to which
we have now come may be treated in its broad-
est relations.

When the cow is about to calve she should be
left as entirely alone as is consistent with a
general oversight and a readiness to interfere
if anything goes wrong. Quietness is the great
desideratum. In good weather there is no place
so good for this purpose as the pasture where
the cow has been accustomed to wander at will.
In bad weather she should be put in a capacious

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 341

box-stall where warmth and quiet can be had.
The approach of labor can generally be detected
early enough for the herdsman to have his
attention called to the cow about to calve, and
quietly keeping her in his eye she may be
watched from a distance and only approached
when there is some sign of distress. A very
restless heifer is perhaps better put in the
stable at once, where she is more apt to lie
down and calve in quiet. In general no in-
terference is desirable unless after long labor
it is evident that something is wrong. Mai-
presentations are the most fertile causes of
such protracted labor, and artificial means must
in such cases be resorted to. If in reach a veter-
inary surgeon is always desirable, as few am-
ateurs make successful accoucheurs. Where
interference is absolutely necessary it must be
resorted to, though few can hope to do more
than save the cow till they have acquired some
costly practical experience.

As has already been said, heifers sometimes
need to have their motherly instinct aroused
and the calves often need to be helped at
the first suckling. Very few calves will take
all their dam's milk for the first few days after
birth, and the cow must be well milked twice a
day for several days after calving. If this is
neglected the bag will become clogged with
milk and may spoil. The bag should be well

342 CATTLE-BREEDING.

milked out, even if the calf seems to empty it,
till it is certain the youngster will take it all
and strip the bag well. No one who has had the
trouble and worry of a spoiled bag on his hands
will need to have the necessity of this impressed
upon him.

After calving, the principal thing to be looked
Barter is the removal of the placenta, or after-
birth. A healthy cow will " clean" without
any attention/and this is the rule. But per-
haps no trouble with cows is more common
than the retention of the whole or a part of
the afterbirth. If the cow's system is in good
-order nature will do its work; hence the best
remedy for this disease is the preliminary pre-
vention which ensures the cow coming to par-
turition in good health. Where this fails or is
neglected it is too late to dally with medicines,
and if the cow does not clean within twenty-
four hours after calving the afterbirth must be
removed by mechanical means. A longer delay
than this is not to be risked, as the womb will
close and render the removal difficult or impos-
sible except with great risk. The afterbirth
should in no case be left unremoved, as it will
almost surely lead to blood-poisoning.

1 have already adverted to the danger of milk
fever in the early summer time in the case of
cows of a full habit and deep milkers. The dan-
ger is so general that all cows calving at this

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 343

time of the year should be given a good dose
of some cooling purgative. I find that a drench
of from one to two pounds of Epsom salts dis-
solved in as much water as is necessary, which
will be about a quart, administered immedi-
ately after calving and repeated in five or six
hours if it does not act, is an almost certain
preventive. I never omit this, as it is beneficial
in all cases and highly necessary in some.

Despite all precautions milk fever will some-
times supervene. In that case the most prompt
measures must be adopted, as unless taken in
the early stages it is almost certain to be fatal.
In such a case call in 'a veterinarian as quickly
as one can be secured, for professional treatment
of the most skillful sort will have enough to do
to save the cow. Where a veterinarian cannot
be had at once, or not at all, I know of no better
remedy than that recommended by Dr. A. J.
Murray, in his admirable little work on "Cat-
tle and Their Diseases." This is tincture of
aconite given in the proportion of twenty-five
to thirty drops to a pint of thin gruel every
three or four hours, beginning with the earliest
premonitions of the disease, till 120 to 130 drops
have been taken. In connection with the acon-
ite a pound of Epsom salts, mixed with an equal
amount of common salt and one ounce of gin-

344 CATTLE-BREEDING.

ger** dissolved in three quarts of water sweet-
ened with molasses, is to be given to open the
bowels. In case the purge fails to act it is to
be repeated, and when that does not promptly
give the desired result injections of warm soap
suds are to be given till the bowels are thor-
oughly evacuated. Broken ice in a cloth bag
is applied to the head and friction to the limbs.
The aconite is of course a simple febrifuge, and
is administered solely for the purpose of allay-
ing the fever. As soon as the fever is broken,
therefore, it should be discontinued.

It is a singular fact worthy of note, that
heifers with their first calves seem to enjoy
entire immunity from puerperal fever. I have
never known a single case in my long experi-
ence, and am quite confident that they are ex-
empt from it.

cows.

The cow was certainly never intended to be
a non-milk-giving animal. I can never suffi-
ciently deprecate, therefore, the neglect of
milking qualities in any breed. Milk produc-
tion being essential to the maintenance of a
breed, it is certainly consistent with its charac-
ter, however much abundant milk production
may tax the system. Everything ought to
be done to develop the milking qualities of all
breeds of cattle, and a little special attention
and the feeding of the most suitable food will

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 345

be found to greatly improve the flow of milk
where it has been neglected. Of course in a
state of nature cows only gave a comparatively
small quantity of milk, and that only for a rel-
atively short period. The demand upon them
was irregular and for just the amount required
by the calf, and the calf was weaned as soon as
it was able to shift for itself. The experience
of every farmer is that it injures the milking
qualities of the cow to let the cow and calf run
together for a long period. The cow "lets down"
only small quantities of milk at a time, and
when she is called on for a full milking twice
a day fails to properly respond. This is well
illustrated on the Western ranges, where the
cows are small milkers and go dry very early.
There is scarcely one of our improved breeds
which has not the milk-producing power de-
veloped far beyond the original capacity of
the unimproved animal. But this quality varies
in the animals of every breed and through a
wide extent. Not only so, but careful experi-
ments have proved beyond question that milk
production in the individual is subject to atro-
phy and to development. The same animal's
production, both in quantity and quality, is de-
pendent on the treatment it receives. If begun
with in early life, too, the amount of develop-
ment possible is far greater than where there
has been neglect till after maturity. If we

346 CATTLE-BREEDING.

want beef production we must begin in calf-
hood; if we want milk production we must
begin at, or just prior to, the first period of
lactation.

A distinguished man of today, when asked
when one should begin with a boy to make a
scholar of him, is said to have replied: "You
must begin with his grandfather." It was an
answer on the lines of the old proverb: "You
cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
Both teach, when applied to cattle-breeding,
the principle of the force of heredity; the value
of improved breeds. We cannot make a prize
dairy cow out of a scrub. But even the scrub
may be made better as a milker by proper care;
may be made better, and may be made to pro-
duce a calf better than she otherwise would,
transmitting the impulse. It is the same thing
as the unequaled "corn-crib cross" in the beef
breeds. Of course, where milk is the object par
excellence, the first thing to be done is to select
high-class dairy stock. Now, we are only con-
sidering the best means of getting all there is
in a given lot of cattle out of them, be they
good, bad, or indifferent. Given the cows we
want to make them yield as much as possible.

It must be remembered that we cannot make
something out of nothing. Axiomatic as is this
statement it is not practically believed in by
many farmers. The demands upon the food

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 347

merely to maintain life are great. The waste
of the system has to be repaired constantly.
This is large enough in warm weather; in the
winter, when combustion for the creation of
heat is so great, it is much larger. And yet men
expect to feed cows little more than enough for
bare existence and have them produce large
quantities of milk. This is utterly ridiculous
as well as impossible. Sometimes the natu-
ral tendency of milk production, kept alive
by the maternal instinct which the tugging of
the calf at the teats creates daily anew, will
keep a cow in milk when she is little more than
a skeleton, but such production is at the ex-
pense of the vital energies and means a shorten-
ing of life and reduction of future productive-
ness. About two-thirds of a food ration is
needed to supply the demands of mere con-
tinued existence. Unless there is something
fed over and above this two-thirds, no produc-
tion of beef or milk can be looked for. The
steer that is fed no more will make no gain in
weight; the cow that is fed no more will go dry.
The question of the difference in care between
a dry and milking cow, especially in winter, is
dependent on this consideration. A dry cow
must be fed only enough to supply the demands
that are represented by keeping her in good
condition. The milch cow must have enough
over and above this to supply the material for

348 CATTLE-BREEDING.

the milk. Milk, the chemists tell us, contains
all the elements of the animal body (hence its
completeness as a food ration); therefore it can
only be made by a ration rich in these elements.
The food ration for milk must then be a rich
one. What the ration lacks the milk will be
deficient in. That one cow can be made to
give as rich milk as another may not be pos-
sible; but by proper food a cow may be made
to give richer milk than when fed on improper
food.

There is no better ration for milk than
abundant pasturage in old pastures. In new
meadows of clover only, or of any one grass,
there is not enough variety to ensure a full
ration; but as the meadows grow older other
grasses spring up to give the needed variety
and make the ration complete. Hence in the
summer good pasturage and plenty of it is all
the cows need. But in the seasons of the year
when this is not to be had it must be replaced
by an abundance of other food. Not only so;
as cold is one of the great drains on the animal
system and a great consumer of food, shelter is
required so that the greatest possible amount of
food shall go to milk production. The capacity
of assimilation is only just so great and the
amount of food is therefore limited, and econo-
my of resources must be practiced. Not only so,
but the physiological effects of cold, especially

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 349

of the chill caused by a sudden change of
weather, are very injurious to milk production.
Therefore, while the dry cows may find all they
require out of doors with fodder and hay, the
milking cows require a warm shelter at night
and in exceptionally bad weather, and a good
milk ration. Mixed wheat, bran and corn-meal,
with nice bright clover and timothy hay and
chopped oats, proportioned to the cow's powers
of production, is as cheap and serviceable a
ration as will readily be found.

Milk, it is well to remember, is a fluid, and
can only be produced in large quantities where
the consumption of water is great. If the water
supply is important in all cases, it is doubly so
in that of milking cows. Let it be freely ob-
tainable, clean, pure, and wholesome. If it is
to be taken in large quantities at once it is
better that it should not be at a very low tem-
perature. It is well settled that cows in milk
drink far more than cattle in process of fatten-
ing, but the exact relations of the amount of
water drunk to the milk given can hardly be
said to have been determined as yet. Upon
this point, however, Prof. Stewart* cites the
report of M. Dancel to the French Academy
of Sciences upon some very interesting experi-
ments which he had made. He says: "The ex-
periments were to determine the effect of quan-

* "Feeding Animals," pp. 352 and 353.

350 CATTLE-BREEDING.

tity of water upon quantity and quality of milk.
By inducing cows to drink more water the
quantity of milk yielded by them can be in-
creased in proportion up to many quarts per
day without perceptibly injuring its quality.
The amount of milk is proportional to the quan-
tity of water drunk. In experimenting upon
cows fed in stall with dry fodder that gave only
nine to twelve quarts of milk per day/7 it was
found "that when this dry food was moistened
with from eighteen to twenty-three quarts of
water daily, their yield was then from twelve
to fourteen quarts of milk per day. Besides
this water taken with the food, the cows were
allowed to drink the same as before, and their
thirst was excited by adding a little salt to the
fodder. The milk produced under this addi-
tional amount of water, on analysis, was pro-
nounced of good quality; and when tested for
butter was found satisfactory. A definite
amount of water could not be fixed upon for
each cow, since the appetite for drink differs
widely in different animals. He found by a
series of observations that the quantity of water
habitually drunk by 'each cow during twenty-
four hours was a criterion to judge of the quan-
tity of milk that she would yield per day. And
a cow that does not habitually drink as much
as twenty-seven quarts of water daily must be
a poor milker, giving only five and a half to

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 351

seven quarts per day. But all the cows which
consumed as much as fifty quarts of water
daily were excellent milkers — giving from
eighteen to twenty-three quarts of milk daily.
He gives a confident opinion that the quantity
of water drunk by a cow is an important test of
her value as a milker."

These tests, it appears, were made on cows
much below the standard of first-rate milkers,
and they show that a large part of the water
consumed was demanded by the animal system.
Cows drinking upward of fifty quarts of water
gave only eighteen to twenty-three quarts of
milk. It will be readily seen that a much
greater amount will be demanded by cows giv-
ing from thirty-two to forty quarts daily. For
such cows a very large amount of water is re-
quired.

In handling milch cows it must be borne in
mind that the mere mechanical act of milking
has not a little to do with a cow's production.
Every drop a cow will give must be taken from
her night and morning. A poor milker who
half milks the cows will let them go dry very
quickly. The calves having had their fill, every
cow should be carefully stripped, and the cows
that are not suckling calves should be milked
out carefully. This should be kept np till with-
in two months to six weeks of the next calving.
Of course there is a wide variation in the time

352 CATTLE-BREEDING.

that cows will naturally remain, or can be kept,
in milk. There are some that can, with diffi-
culty, be kept in milk six months among the
"natives," and there are many blooded cows
which it is difficult to dry off after ten or eleven
months. The effect of systematic and long-
continued milking is always to increase the
period of lactation, and it should be attended
to even when, with a young cow, the milking
gives so little as to seem not worth the while.
It especially behooves the breeders of Short-
horn cattle, so long famous for their milking
qualities, to see that these are not neglected and
gradually lost.

The time in which a cow will come in heat
again is somewhat uncertain. A healthy ani-
mal suckling her calf will ordinarily come in
in from forty to sixty days after calving. She
should be bred at once, as early in the heat as
convenient, and then put in a quiet place until
the excitation of the period of heat has quite
worn away. There is no more fertile cause of
failure of conception in healthy animals than
the excitement of the animal, either by care-
less driving, by allowing the cow to remain too
long with the bull, or to be served too often, or
by permitting other cows to fret her. A single
service early in the heat and immediate re-
moval to a quiet place is the desirable practice.

With a vigorous bull, whose energies are not

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 353

overtaxed, there is no reason why healthy cows,
treated in a sensible way, should not stand at
the first service. For various reasons, which
are in the main not capable of explanation,
many cows miss the first and sometimes several
services. If no evidences of ill-health are dis-
cernible and the bulling is regular, there is
nothing to be done but to return the cow at
each heat to the bull, or to some other bull.
The latter plan sometimes proves at once suc-
cessful, showing that the difficulty lay with the
bull.

All diseases affecting the generative organs
are somewhat insufficiently understood. This
is especially true of abortion. Abortions fall
into two broad classes: those caused by some
local trouble of sporadic origin, and those
caused by some epidemic or endemic disease.

The sporadic cases of abortion are generally
due to some constitutional disease which reacts
upon the foetal system or to some local affec-
tion of the womb. Animals affected with any
form of tuberculosis are especially subject to
abortions. The highly heritable nature of tu-
berculosis makes it almost a blessing that this
is so, for any means that will check the spread
of so dangerous and so insidious a disease de-
serves welcome. There are many other dis-
eases which lead to a general weakness of the
system which will induce abortion. Not only

354 CATTLE-BREEDING.

active diseases but a general low condition of
the system, such as is brought on by the want
of proper food and attention during the winter,
and which is likely to show itself in the period
of extreme lassitude which marks the passing
from winter to spring. The treatment in these
cases is, if there are sufficient premonitory
symptoms to give an opportunity for preven-
tives, perfect quiet and a general toning up of
the system. But this rarely occurs. The symp-
toms of abortion are generally not sufficiently
marked to attract attention till too late to take
any steps to prevent its occurrence. Youatt,
in his celebrated book on cattle, in many re-
spects the pioneer in this field, says that "the
cow is, more than any other animal, subject to
abortion," and fixes the usual periods of its oc-
currence at half the natural period of gestation,
seven and eight months. Of these periods, that
falling at seven months will in a great pro-
portion of cases yield a living calf. The first
four to five months, of course, never does, and
the eighth month rarely gives a living calf,
though I have known one or two to live.

An abortion is unfortunate as losing the calf,
but it is a serious trouble, moreover, often
destroying the breeding qualities of the cow.
Hence cows which abort must be treated
with great care. Sometimes the calf dies be-
fore expulsion from the uterus and is fetid

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 355

when ejected, and the afterbirth comes away
slowly and is extremely noisome. Such cases
are almost invariably followed by great loss of
flesh and general breaking down of health.
The coat becomes staring and rough, with the
cow dull and feverish at first, and a general
decline ensues. She comes in heat quickly
and is likely to be very irregular in her bull-
ing. Such cases are often fatal, and if there is
any taint in the animal's blood by inheritance
the congenital defect is sure to show itself.
The only treatment is good fare and general
tonics. No attempt to breed the cow should be
made for weeks, or till she has regained her
normal appearance and regularity of heat.
Should she be bred while the uterine trouble is
actively present she will in most cases fail to
stand, and the disease will be aggravated; and,
if she should stand, a second abortion would
almost surely follow. Indeed, one of the great?
evils of abortion is that a cow having once
aborted may do so again and again in suc-
cessive years; generally at the same period.
This fact, that the time of a subsequent abor-
tion is apt to be approximately that of the pre-
ceding, gives warning and enables the owner to
make use of preventives.

Where the calf is born alive — or if dead is yet
not offensive, showing that it has only died in
the immediate process of expulsion — serious

356 CATTLE-BREEDING.

results are neither so likely to occur at the
moment nor in the future. Nevertheless, the
cow should be carefully attended to, only bred
after some time of rest, and then watched with a
view to prevent a repetition of the disease. Not
infrequently it proves impossible to get a cow
which has aborted in calf. More often it is a
difficult matter, involving great loss of time?
and this sometimes is repeated after each suc-
ceeding calving for some years. If a cow thus
becomes a shy breeder she loses much time
and a great part of her value. If she aborts
twice in succession it is ordinarily the part of
wisdom to feed her off. It is almost sure that
her profitableness is gone, and she may be a
source of danger to the herd, for it is by no
means certain how far the sporadic and the
epidemic or epizootic types of this disease run
into each other. Most writers think it at least
the part of wisdom to remove the foetus and
the afterbirth far beyond sight and smell of the
other cows. Youatt strongly recommends this,
for he had great doubt of the disease ever be-
ing truly contagious, questioned its epidemic
character, and fell back on the far more doubt-
ful and questionable theory that it was caused
by the effect of imagination. He says: *"The
cow is an animal considerably imaginative and
highly irritable during the period of^ pregnancy.

*'Touatt on Cattle," Ed. Stevens, p. 383.

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 357

In abortion, the foetus is often putrid before it
is discharged; and the placenta, * * * as it
drops away in fragments, emits a peculiar and
most noisome smell. This smell seems to be
singularly annoying to the other cows,— they
sniff at it and then run bellowing about. Some
sympathetic influence is exercised on their
uterine organs, and in a few days a greater or
less number of those that had pastured together
likewise abort."

The so-called epizootic type of abortion has
evaded many later investigators than Youatt,
who, if they have agreed in rejecting his theory
of the reaction of the imagination on the uterine
system, have agreed in little else. Certain it is
that this disease is mysterious in its coming
and going, its transmission, and many other
circumstances of its occurrence, and where it
appears it paralyzes production sometimes for
one, more often for several years. Those who
have suffered from this scourge seem to think
it cheaper to wipe out the herd — stopping the
conflagration by burning up its fuel in advance
—and after an interval 'to begin afresh, than
to try to fight the unequal battle.

I have known of a case where this disease
came suddenly, spread rapidly, and went swiftly;
of another where it developed gradually, spread
slowly but widely, and was only gotten rid of
by the destruction of the herd after some years.

358 CATTLE-BREEDING.

It has been attributed to ergot. While ergot,
no doubt, does at times cause abortion, this
disease has shown itself where ergot was cer-
tainly not the cause. It has been thought that
the bu]l was the active agent, but- a single bull
has been used steadily in two herds, one affected
and the other healthy. We can only say it is
a mystery.

I wish to accentuate before passing from this
subject the high value I set upon the prompt
and complete removal of the placenta in all
cases of abortion. I have rarely known a cow
to suffer seriously in health where this has been
done efficiently. In almost every instance it
alone seems to give rise to later stages of irri-
tation and inflammation, and with it once out of
the way the cow will quickly regain her usual
health. If the afterbirth is not removed, like
any other foreign animal substance it will de-
cay and induce blood-poisoning, which if not
fatal is sure to induce a tedious and trouble-
some illness, slowly recovered from and often
bringing on secondary complaints destructive
to the animal's usefulness.

BULLS.

When the bull calves are weaned they require
the same treatment which has already been
recommended for the heifers and should be
kept by themselves, quite apart from the

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 359

females of the herd. The first crisis in the
young bull's life comes when he is between
nine and twelve months old. He is then pass-
ing from a calf into a bull and change is sure
to make him restless and inclined to charge
about, and if any cows or heifers are pastured
near, especially if they are allowed to run out
when in heat, the youngster will worry off all
his flesh and get himself thoroughly out of
condition. Let him be well secluded, then,
given a quiet grass lot and abundant food and
pushed along well in his growth, without over-
feeding. During this period the young bulls
are apt to get uneven and ragged. This is be-
cause they are passing from the round, plump,
comparatively formless period of calves, and
settling down into the well-fixed character of
the mature animal. Not a few seem to go
through what may perhaps be termed a pro-
gressive development. That is, some parts of
the body seem to outgrow others, getting their
final form first, the others developing more
slowly. This often makes a calf of this age
more faulty than at any time in his life before
or after. There is no reason to despair of
the calf of which this is true; good care and
time will even up his form. It is often surpris-
ing how a good calf will go to pieces at this
time and then recover and grow out into all
and more than he promised to be. This is not

360 CATTLE-BREEDING.

a phenomenon confined to the genus bos. It is
true of all young males in the period of transi-
tion to maturity?

A well-grown yearling bull is capable of per-
forming light service, and it is very desirable
to have such an one to breed to yearling heifers.
He should of course be used with great caution,
very infrequently and on very few cows for the
first year. Fifteen or twenty are quite enough
for him his first year, and rather more than half
of the work had better fall in the second half
of the year. As he grows older the number
may be steadily and gradually increased, until
at five years old, if he is a strong and vigorous
animal, he ought to be capable of covering a
hundred cows with the certainty of getting a
calf in nearly every instance. Of course no bull
gets so high a proportion of calves. There are
many disturbing causes quite apart from any
want of vigor on his part. The chief of these
are disease or other causes affecting the females
solely. Still a hundred cows is hard service,
even for an exceptionally vigorous bull, and he
must be well cared for and fed an abundance
of strength-supplying food if he is to be ex-
pected to be a sure and regular breeder. Let
me strongly emphasize the necessity of abun-
dant out-of-door life and exercise for the stock
bull. Too much stabling is unnatural and
highly enervating, and robs all males of their

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 361'

highest vigor. The close confinement of a
stable is likely to be a strain on the general
system too, affecting the temper and the ner-
vous organism; and those that are thus kept
are often cross-tempered and given to chafing
and fretting, and in the end are very likely
to become actively vicious. Give the bull a
free, open pasture lot, sheltered from the cold
winds in the winter days, from the direct rays
of the sun in the summer, and let him have at
least twelve hours' quiet rumination there in
every twenty-four. A young bull, if inclined to
be restless in his lot and seemingly at a loss for
companionship, may often be better off for a
few bull calves in the same enclosure. An old
bull showing a like disposition is often made
quiet by being allowed to run at least a part of
the year with the dry cows. The freedom and
the exercise he must have or he will lose his
potency early; the companionship is not so
necessary.

Again, no bull can do heavy service well on
pasturage alone, be it ever so good. There is
no better food ration than the best pasturage,
and it meets the requirements of animals under
ordinary conditions most admirably; but a bull
doing full service the year round is not living
under ordinary conditions and he needs a more
condensed ration, one which will give a greater
amount of nutritive food for the same bulk.

362 CATTLE-BREEDING.

The pasturage should be supplemented by a
liberal allowance — as much as the bull will eat
up cleanly in most cases, unless actual experi-
ence shows that he inclines to become too fat
on such a ration — of cut oats and chopped hay,
arid a good feed of wheat bran and corn, shelled
and crushed if possible. This is necessary to
keep up the lusty state of body which is so
essential to sexual vigor. Of course this is very
different from the course recommended in gen-
eral with cows, and it deserves special notice.
A great many breeders allow their stock bull
to run out with their cows, and especially with
their dry cows. The result of this is that they
get only such food as the cows get. Now, while
there is no need of anything more than pastur-
age, or pasturage and hay and corn-fodder for
dry cows, a bull cannot do heavy service on
such a ration. Every breeder who has pursued
such a course has surely noticed that, while
the cows keep in excellent condition, the bull
is almost always in low flesh, and not infre-
quently excessively thin. Where the bull is
kept in the pasture with all the cows the milk-
ing cows will be housed and fed, and the bull
often left out and without feed in the winter.
The tax on the bull at the same time is, in its
way, quite as great as, even greater than, that
upon the system of a cow in milk and in calf.
He must be fed to meet this tax; fed, and fed
liberally.

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 363

How necessary this is may be illustrated by
the ordinary treatment which a stallion mak-
ing a heavy season requires and always receives.
No. one would expect a horse to do heavy service
in the stud on pasturage, however good. On
the contrary, the stallion is carefully housed and
fed on the most invigorating food, given a regu-
lar quantum of exercise, and in most cases used
only at certain hours of the day. Why a high-
bred bull should not receive the same care can-
not be explained. In just the degree of approxi-
mation to such care the actual treatment is,
in that degree will the excellence of results
be. A breeding bull returns in his calves full
measure for the care given him, and enough
strengthening food must always be fed him to
render him lusty and vigorous.

Now this does not mean that the bull is to
be overfed. A thin-fleshed bull, running out of
doors all the year, is certain to be a surer and
better breeder than an over-stabled, overfed
one. Obesity leads to lazy, sluggish temper,
and a general decay of bodily vigor. Nature
abhors extremes. The via media is always the
wise way. There is no sense in shying at the
ditch on one side only to back into that on the
other. What is wanted is a bull that is in good
condition; that will at the same time go eagerly
to the feed trough and eat up his feed quickly
and entirely; that will serve a cow promptly

364 CATTLE-BREEDING.

and without delay ; that, in short, is active, wide
awake, and in high health.

In speaking of over-feeding the question of
feeding for the show-ring naturally suggests
itself. Can a bull be fed, trained and exhibited
without impairing his procreative powers? In
general it may be safely said that there is great
danger in so doing. While a risk is always
involved, there is no certainty of doing injury,
and to many the object in view will justify the
risk. A bull calf, even a yearling bull, may be
put in show-yard condition without any serious
risk under ordinary circumstances. They will
stand a high state of flesh, especially if not cut
off from their regular exercise, which would in-
jure maturer animals. On the other hand, few
bulls can stand five years of systematic training
for the show-ring without loss of vigor. It is a
highly unnatural life. The whole fabric of the
body is surcharged with an undue amount of
fatty matter; the blood is made hot and fever-
ish; the frame soft and lacking in muscle; the in-
ternal organs clogged with outside fat; and the
whole animal smothered, as it were; every or-
gan impeded in its action by the animars own
flesh. If the animal by nature has a tendency
to fat this will be abnormally developed and
fatty degeneration of one organ or another will
follow. In the bull, as in the cow, the organs
of procreation seem to suffer first. Some ani-

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 365

mals of great vigor stand the strain. They are
in most cases animals of a natural and inherited
tendency to high flesh; animals which take on
a show-yard form with great ease and rapidity,
and without the great strain that most animals
have to be subjected to. They can be kept in
ordinary flesh till within a few weeks of the
exhibition season and then put in a sufficiently
good state. By taking them out of the breed-
ing establishment for the time, and letting
them have a further rest from service after the
season's fairs are over, they will show in many
cases few or no evil effects. It is rare that
such animals are found. It is because there
are some such that the standard in the fair-ring
is based on what is obesity for most animals.
And so long as these things are so the few will
set the example and the rest will simulate a
virtue which they do not possess. I have shown
with great success, and without any real injury,
several of my best breeding bulls from calfhood
or yearlings to maturity. Among these were
such celebrated bulls as Muscatoon, Chilton,
London Duke, and Baron Butterfly. But no
one of these bulls was ever overdone. They
took on flesh writh great ease and rapidity, and
were always in sufficiently high flesh to content
those who could not see excellence apart from
high flesh, and their native excellence was hard
to be passed over. But it is hard to win with

366 CATTLE-BREEDING.

a thin bull, however good. His want of flesh
may be to the penetrating eye of an expert
but the result of ordinary feeding and heavy
work; but the less experienced will inevitably
think that he is thin because corn and oats, and
oil-cake, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, could not
make him a mountain of flesh, such as many of
his competitors are sure to be. As a practical
question I should meet this matter of overfeed-
ing by strong advice against subjecting a valu-
able animal to it. At the same time I do not
advise against the exhibition of really first-class
animals, nor exhibiting them in good condition.
Good judges will see their merit and they will
win despite ignorance and the prevailing faults
of our show-rings. Such triumphs are the kind
that tell in the way of solid reputation, and
they are the greatest educators. The unin-
formed looker-on usually thinks the largest
bull is going to win, no matter how coarse
he may be, no matter how patchy and badly
disposed the flesh may be upon his huge un-
gainly carcass. If such an one does win it is
thought all right; no comment is excited, no
inquiry awakened. If, on the other hand, a
compact, level, well-formed, but comparatively
low-fleshed bull wins, there is at once a ques-
tion made and his merits are canvassed, gener-
ally to the advantage of all lookers-on, who
come to understand that the closest approxi-

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 367

mation to the huge proportions of the elephant
is not the highest standard of excellence for a
bull of a beef breed of cattle.

In the position which I have here taken I am
not simply expressing the results of my own
experience, nor yet that of many fellow-breed-
ers and exhibitors of cattle, but I am glad to
know that the experiments and investigations
of the most eminent theorists, such as Prof.
Henry* of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experi-
ment Station, entirely coincide with the views
above given as to the danger of and the inju-
ries consequent upon the overfeeding of breed-
ing animals.

In using the bull it is well to remember that
his powers are not unlimited, and that in order
to secure the best results his faculties must be
conserved. In the first place he must not be
allowed to cover too many cows. Such a prac-
tice brings its own punishment; many of the
cows failing to stand, and the calves begotten
in many cases failing to reach the standard
shown by the get of the same bull when not
overworked. If a bull is desired to be highly
prepotent he must be given very light work.
In order to husband his powers let him first, as
already recommended on other grounds, be
kept alone, or at most with the dry cows. Sec-
ondly, let the cows be taken to his lot to be

* See papers in the Breeder's Gazette for 1887.

368 CATTLE-BREEDING.

bred, and never let him serve a cow but once
at a single heat. The cow after having been
served should be taken away at once, com-
pletely out of the neighborhood of the bull.
At first he will try to follow her, but he will
soon learn to understand the procedure, and
having served the cow will walk off and make
no effort to follow her. Such a training I
esteem of the greatest value. There is no fret,
no nervous running about, no bawling after the
cow; and this is no less for the good of the
bull than, as we have already seen, it is for
the cow. Sometimes a cow that has given
trouble about standing may be turned in and
allowed to run with the bull for several hours,
when he will serve her several times. This
sometimes leads to a shy breeder being got
with calf, but it is a bad, rather than a good,
plan for a regular breeding cow. and is not de-
sirable for the bull. It should be a rare excep-
tion, and used as a forlorn hope only.

In conclusion let me urge, what has been
touched on already above, namely, the reaction
on the bull's temper and disposition of his treat-
ment. Handle a bull gently and kindly from
the time he is calved until he attains to matu-
rity and grows into old age, and there will be
very little to complain of in his temper. If
never aroused, the temper of most animals,
especially if of a heavy bodily habit, is kindly.

GENERAL CARE OF CATTLE. 369

The bulls of. the smaller breeds are far more
likely to be vicious than those of the large beef
breeds. I have never bred or raised a vicious
bull in all my life-long experience. It is kindly,
watchful, firm handling that is needed, without
roughness or abuse. When such care is given
the bull will in almost every case be docile and
perfectly easy of control.

24

FEEDING METHODS.

IT is not my purpose in this chapter to enter
into any exhaustive discussion of the question
of cattle feeding. Such a discussion would
necessarily occupy a disproportionately large
amount of space and would be out of keeping
with the general plan of this work. I shall
only undertake to outline what has proved in
my experience the most practical method of
feeding breeding cattle, and to seek to show
that there is a middle line between the waste-
ful old-fashioned methods and the highly spe-
cialized, and often in actual application, very
expensive, methods of the theorists.

I have no quarrel with the theorists. They
are the guides of all practical men. That they
are often impractical themselves is no reflec-
tion on their work. It is the experience of all
time that a man is moulded by his pursuits.
The student of matter is blinded by the one
subject held close to his eyes, and forgets that
there is a great world beyond of far different
phenomena, and he is led, step by step, into a
materialistic' belief which reckons on no world
but that of matter. He who studies mental
phenomena, and the phenomena of soul and

(370)

FEEDING METHODS. 371

spirit, loses his hold on matter and becomes an
idealist. He who deals with pure theory, in
whatever sphere, views things only in the ab-
stract, and forgets the trammels of daily life.
But the results of the theorist's labors are only
the more broadly true that they are worked
out in connection with abstract truth. The
more completely any phenomena, or set of phe-
nomena, can be separated from the concrete
cases in which they occur, the more catholic
will the cause underlying them be. When the
law is once ascertained the man of practical
affairs steps in, takes the general truth and
applies it to the various needs of the world of
action.

Thus, the early experiments in feeding ra-
tions appeared visionary and absurd to many
practical men. As time went on the essential
truth in the theories became more and more
apparent, and through the intervention of men
at once learned and trained in applying theory
to practice the results of the scientific tests
have been brought nearer and nearer to the
feeder.

I have more to complain of in the old happy-
go-lucky way of feeding stock. The theory
that "the method my father and grandfather
followed is good enough for me," is one of the
worst ever formulated. It in almost every case
indicates that the inherited method was an

372 CATTLE-BREEDING.

unwise and careless one. Had it been otherwise
the son and grandson would have been educated
by it up to a progressive spirit, for he who is
first is always inspirited to maintain his pre-
eminence. Traditions of this sort are usually
harbored by those whose fences are rotten,
whose weeds are uncut, whose cattle are half-
starved in the winter and half-cared for all the
year round. We look on the fancy farm of the
man who is a follower of pure theory, and then
on the run-down farm of "the son of his fath-
ers," and wonder which reaps the least profit.
What we want to learn is, what the theoretical
scientist has to teach us, and then apply it in a
practical, common-sense way. Thus, and thus
only, can cattle be fed profitably in this day,
when the farmer needs to save every cent he
possibly can ; save, too, not by hoarding, but by
using the most progressive methods and making
two profits where formerly only one was made.
Let us glance, then, very briefly at the salient
facts which science has to teach us in regard to
feeding methods before looking at the way the
practical feeder deals with the problems which
confront him daily

All animal bodies, from the simplest to the
most complex, consist chiefly of the four ele-
ments of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitro-
gen. These elements play an equal part in the
composition of plants. That part of the bodies

FEEDING METHODS. 373

of animals and plants which is combustible is
made up of these four elements; that which
is incombustible — which in chemical analysis
forms what is called "ash" — is made up of a
variety of elements, among which may be
enumerated: sulphur, phosphorus, potassium,
sodium, iron, chlorine, magnesium, bromine
and iodine. These incombustible elements vary
greatly in quantity in different parts of the ani-
mal organism, and as a whole constitute but a
small part of the body.

The largest constituent of animal bodies is
water, which is made up of oxygen and hydro-
gen in the proportion of two parts of hydrogen
to one of oxygen. The per cent of water in
any given animal varies with the individual;
and also in the individual according as it is fat
or lean, a very fat animal containing a smaller
proportion of water than a lean one. The
amount of water ranges from about thirty-five
to seventy per cent. The remainder of the
body consists of solid matter of various sorts.

Now life is simply a burning up of the ani-
mal body. Oxygen is taken in through the
lungs, is carried by the blood throughout the sys-
tem, and combines with other elements in the
body just as the materials of a candle do when
it is burned. Constant supplies must be kept
up, therefore, to replace the parts burned up or
the animal will be consumed; that is, will die

374 CATTLE-BREEDING.

of starvation. Not only must the supplies be
kept up, but they must be of the character of
the parts consumed, and in a form such that
the organism will assimilate them. The body
may be said to be made up of the blood, muscle,
fat, bones, skin, hair, horns, etc.; and each of
these has its own particular composition. Thus
the blood is made up of nearly eighty per
cent of water and a little more than twenty
per cent of solids, of which nearly one per cent
is ash (chloride of sodium and phosphates of
magnesium, soda and lime), and the remainder
is a richly nitrogenous matter — very like the
white of eggs — with a little fat and sugar. The
bones, on the other hand, have about two-thirds
of inorganic matter in their constituents, being
rich in phosphates of lime and magnesia, in
carbonate of lime, in potash and common salt
(chloride of sodium)! It is necessary for an
accurate theoretical determination of the prob-
lems of feeding that all the parts of the body
should be carefully analyzed and an accurate
determination reached as to the relative de-
mand made upon the feeder for food of the
various kinds.

Now it is not necessary when this is deter-
mined to go to work and get all these elements
separately and form a mixture as a physician
might compound a prescription and administer
the food in such a way. On the contrary, even

FEEDING METHODS. 375

when the ingredients are actually present they
must be in a form adapted to the animal's inter-
nal economy. Nature has not only ordained
the composition of the food, but its form. It
was once thought that animals had the power
of transforming materials from their simple
elemental form to a more complex state; of
preparing food for their own supply by modi-
fying it to suit their needs. But this view is
no longer commonly accepted. It is the part of
plants to convert the mineral matter of the soil
and air into the form needed by animal bodies,
and animals can only make use of it when so
converted. Hence it would follow that the
composition of animals and plants is nearly the
same so far as component elements go. And
this is quite true. The food of plants consists
mainly of water (oxygen and hydrogen), car-
bonic acid (carbon and oxygen), and ammonia
(hydrogen and nitrogen). These, as we have
seen, are the principal elements of animal
bodies. Not only is this so, but plants also
have incombustible elements in their compo-
sition, and these are similar to those found in
animal bodies. Hence it follows that nature
has prepared in plants just the complex food
that such animals as the ruminants — to which
class the ox belongs — demand. Our task is not
a hard one in general, then. Follow nature;
feed the stock as nearly as possible as they fed

376 CATTLE-BREEDING-.

themselves in a state of nature. So true is this
that we find the only 'single substance which
affords what the scientist terms a complete
ration — that is to say, affords all the elements
needed -by the animal in the best proportions-
is milk. But we find that in any pasture in
which a variety of grasses grow, as in ordinary
cases is sure to occur, these grasses as a
whole afford a complete ration. A little study
of the animal's habits will show that instinct
has taught it to seek a variety of foods as if for
this very purpose of making one supply what
the other lacked; of making one supplement the
other. A mixed ration of the ordinary products
of a farm always offers, therefore, an admirable
ration. But nature tends to be lavish; science
aims to be economical. The scientist who
laboriously works out the exact ration de-
manded by a two-year-old steer weighing thir-
teen hundred pounds, in order to gain one and
a half pounds per day for six months, will
perhaps find when he has finished his task that
it is as it stands worthless to the feeder, because
he has taken a world-wide field in his calcu-
lations of food supplies while the former has
only three or four at his command. But the
general rule having been reached, the analysis
of various foods made, substitutions and varia-
tions in the tables can be made at any time
without trouble. The first tables puzzled and

FEEDING METHODS. 377

amused the farmers, but now a table that will
work well in practice can readily be made out
on the basis of the early German experiments.
The first thing the feeder wants to get settled
is what food supplies has he to draw from.
Then he can build up on that basis. The
breeder needs nothing so much as good per-
manent pastures. As has already been said,
such pastures yield such a variety of grasses as
to furnish a complete and most excellent ration.
The pasture is the backbone of cattle-breeding.
No effort is too great to get the pasture ready
for the cattle in the earliest days of spring, or
to prolong in the autumn the time during
which it yields good grass. The ration afforded
by pasturage is not one calculated to make
animals very fat. It is well-balanced, tending
to make growth and lean meat, rather than fat.
In such cases, as fattening is the prime object,
an addition must be made of some food rich in
fat-making qualities. In such a case the scien-
tist is ready with a suggestion. He will point
out that some parts of some plants are diges-
tible and others indigestible, that the nutrition
derived from one plant will be greater than
that derived from another on this account
simply, aside from the question of composition.
Thus rye straw is a poor food compared with
wheat straw — though chemically very nearly
the same — because the latter is more digesti-

378 CATTLE-BREEDING.

ble. When this additional factor is brought in
the question is fairly open and the things to be
determined are, first: The kind of food that is
needed to make the kind of growth demanded;
second, the kind of plant or grain which
offers that food; and third, the digestibility, or,
as it is called, the nutritive ratio of the given
plant. The cereal grains, the seeds — such as
linseed,, cottonseed, etc. — rich in oils are spe-
cially valuable for pressing forward flesh-mak-
ing, because they are composed of the elements
used in that process.

An animal may pine and die for want of food
when heavily fed, if the food is not of the
right character. Thus sugar is highly nutri-
tious, but an animal could not subsist upon it for
any extended period. What is mainly needed
are those elements rich in nitrogen, called in
general albuminoids, whose function is muscle-
making. All the grains are rich in these mate-
rials. After them come certain nutrients, non-
nitrogenous in their composition, and called
carbo-hydrates because they are made up of
carbon and hydrogen and oxygen— and the lat-
ter two elements in such proportion as to form
water. The stalks of plants, etc., largely con-
sist of these non-nitrogenous matters.

So well has nature distributed these food
supplies that often a single plant furnishes an
entirely sufficient ration. Thus corn and corn-

FEEDING METHODS. 379

fodder form a well-recommended ration for
feeding fat cattle. The grain and straw of
wheat also offer a good ration. There is
scarcely any better combination for breeding-
cattle than one formed of clover hay, cut oats,
and wheat-bran or corn-meal.

It is evident, therefore, that it is not necessary
to concoct some elaborate mixture of a great
variety of food stuffs in order to get a good
ration. Indeed one of the things which scien-
tific investigation has clearly shown is that a
little variety in feeding is all that is needed.

What the practical farmer wants is the
cheapest ration which is also a good ration.
The best way to get at this is generally to con-
sider what is the cheapest food in the section
in which we live each year and make that the
basis. If wheat is very low bran will prob-
ably be one of the cheapest substances we
can use. , Corn may be still cheaper. The
usual fluctuations in the markets may drive
us from one food to another, but it will pay
to change if many head are to be fed through
the winter. Wheat bran, clover hay, and cut
oats is one of the best combinations I have
ever tried, and for a little increase of flesh
production a small addition of linseed-oil
cake is very good. Under ordinary circum-
stances I do not believe that cooked and
steamed food is desirable, particularly from an

380 CATTLE-BREEDING.

economic point of view. Corn is more heating
than wheat bran, but its excellence as a cattle
food cannot be denied. For young animals it
is best fed as meal; for older animals roughly
crushed. The rationale of this is obvious. The
smooth, flinty, outer coatings of the grain do
not offer a ready access to the gastric juices
and a large part of the grain passes out into the
draught unaffected by the digestive processes.
A great economy is, therefore, effected by feed-
ing crushed corn. Of course in all cases the
hay or straw should be fed with the grain.
The digestive processes of all ruminants require
an abundance of "roughness" for healthy ac-
tion.

There is no room for dogmatism in the mat-
ter of foods. All sorts of grains roots, forage
plants, etc., have their claims, and it is largely
a question of locality, and what can be cheaply
and advantageously grown in any given place.
I find no single thing more useful in feeding
than sorghum. It has the greatest fattening
qualities, is eaten greedily, increases to a mar-
velous degree the flow of milk, and from the
end of August to the first of December it is one
of my chief resources. What sorghum is to
me, roots are in the farm economy of Canada.
They cannot raise sorghum to advantage; we
cannot raise roots. Each latitude must adapt
itself to its climatic and other conditions.

FEEDING METHODS. 381

The feeding of such green food on pasture-
land in the summer is an old custom and one
which has enjoyed a deserved popularity. There
are drawbacks to this system of soiling, but
these drawbacks are chiefly found where soil-
ing is carried to a great extreme and made the
exclusive method of feeding. Partial soiling
in conjunction with good grazing is one of the
best methods ever used to put stock in fine con-
dition. Few feeders of show cattle can be
found who have not been accustomed to resort
to cut ears of green corn, corn-fodder, sorghum,
or some similar crop. General soiling on rye,
clover, timothy, millet, peas, etc., etc., has not
been used to any great extent in this country
outside of city dairies or small farms where
grass is too scarce to carry the stock. There
is no doubt that soiling can be practiced very
effectively and economically where land is
dear. Its greatest drawback is the cost of
labor necessary to keep a crop always in
season.

The great problem has been how to procure
green food in winter. Dairy cattle especially
require such a diet, and the milk flow suffers
for lack of it. The silo has been invented as a
solution of this problem with very considerable
success. The methods now in use took their
rise in the experiments of M. Gaffart, in France,
and he showed that soiling plants could be pre-

882 CATTLE-BREEDING.

served through weeks and months in a green
state in a compact form and fed with great
advantage. The juices of the plants undergo a
fermentation which does not impair their use-
fulness if properly conducted; but it is neces-
sary that the silo should be so constructed as
to exclude all air, as the hermetic sealing of
the silo is an essential condition of this fer-
mentation taking place without souring. New
appliances are making the construction of silos
more and more easy and satisfactory, and the
time is probably not far off when the use of
ensilage will be quite common. There is cer-
tainly immense scope for the development of
such a system. The difficulties are of course
very real and very patent. The cost of the silo
is considerable, and in most sections of the
country the making of silage has not passed
beyond the stage of experiment. The cost of
labor, too, tells heavily in these days of slow
returns and small profits. But greater than
any other difficulty is the general want of prac-
tical knowledge which has caused many who
have made the experiment to fail, and discour-
aged others who would otherwise have been
glad to make the attempt. This will, no doubt,
give way before greater experience, and in a
dozen years or more ensilage is likely to play
an "important part in our farm economy.
Let me now give an average case taken

FEEDING METHODS.

388

chiefly from Prof. Stewart's valuable work on
"Feeding Animals," and by him drawn mainly
from the experiments of Prof. Johnson and Dr.
Wolff. He takes as a ration for an average
milch cow, estimated for 1,000 pounds live
weight, a combination that will contain twenty-
four pounds of dry organic substance. This
ration should contain of digestible nutrients:
albuminoids, two and five-tenths pounds (2.5
Ibs.); carbo-hydrates, twelve and five-tenths
pounds (12.5 Ibs.); fat, four-tenths of a pound
(0.4) ; making a total of fifteen and four-tenths
(15.4) pounds in the whole ration of twenty-
four pounds. The actual weight of the ration
will of course be considerably in excess of this
owing to the water, which is not calculated.
Thus to get twenty-four pounds of dry matter
in young clover hay about twenty-five per cent
would have to be added, making say thirty
pounds. In such food as mangolds, brewers'
grain, etc., a much larger allowance must be
made for water, amounting to from seventy-
five to as much as eighty-five per cent. The
richest and best meadow hay approximates
closely the theoretical standard, as may be
seen by the following table of analysis (esti-
mated on basis of 1,000 Ibs. live weight):

Total or-
ganic dry
matter.

Albu-
minoids.

Carbo-
hydrates.

Fat.

Total nu-
trients.

Standard

24.0

2.5

12.5

0.40

15.40

30 Ibs. meadow hay

23.2

2.49

12.75

0.42

15.66

384-

CATTLE-BREEDING.

Good rations, fitted to ordinary use, may be
readily compounded on the basis of this stand-
ard, of which the following are examples:

Dry

organic
substance

Digesti-
ble albu-
minoids.

Carbo-
hydrates.

Fat.

9.5

0.65

4.92

0.12

4 9

0 08

2.40

0 04

20 Ibs mangolds..

2.2

0.22

2.00

0.02

5.6

1.20

2.81

0 30

2 Ibs. cotton-seed cake

1.6

0.66

0.35

0.12

23 8

2 81

12 48

0.60

24 0

2.50

12.50

0.40

TABLE II.

20 Ibs. cured corn-fodder

13.7

0.64

8.68

0.20

4 1

0.04

1.82

0.03

6 Ibs. malt sprouts .

5.0

1.25

2.62

0.05

2 Ibs cotton-seed meal.

1.6

0.66

0.35

0.12

33-lb ration containing.

24.4

2.59

13.47

0.39

Standard .

24.0

2.50

12.50

0.40

TABLE III.

15 Ibs. corn-fodder

12.1

0.16

5.55

0.04

4.1

0.59

2.21

0.15

5 Ibs. malt sprouts

4.1

1.04

2.19

0.08

2.5

0.25

1.82

0.14

2 Ibs. cotton-seed meal

1.6

0.66

0.35

0.12

24.4

2.70

12.12

0.53

Standard

24.0

2.50

12.50

0.40

The simplest tables, containing only bran or
crushed corn, with hay and chopped oats, are,
in my judgment, the best for the practical
farmer, and may be readily calculated. But
while the tables of the scientific investigator
are the touchstones to try our work by, even
those who prepare them admit that they are
only approximate. The personal equation is

FEEDING METHODS. 385

constantly coming in to cause slight variations,
which must be met by constant and unflagging
watchfulness on the part of the feeder. Com-
binations of good hays, clover,, timothy, mea-
dow fescue, mixed meadow hay, etc., with
chopped oats, wheat bran, or middlings, corn
in meal or crushed, never fail, if judiciously
mixed, to give excellent results. These are the
staples of good feeding. Good results may be
obtained from soiling and the use of oil-cakes
and meals in special cases, but I am strongly
of the opinion that year in and year out the
simplest diet is the' best. The general use of
all condimental foods I am especially inclined
to condemn. They are not needed with sound,
healthful breeding-cattle. Where they are
needed the best way to meet the case is by
sending the beast to the block. Cattle which
require to be kept up by stimulants are not fit
to breed from, and the sooner they cease to
perpetuate their feeble race the better.

Of course, where special circumstances inter-
vene, special means must be resorted to. Ex-
traordinary show-yard condition can only be
attained by resorting to special methods of
feeding. Here, no doubt, all the appliances of
forcing may be used with propriety, provided
it be first decided that the end in view justifies
the extraordinary strain on the animals' sys-
tems. But in general all that is really to be

25

386 CATTLE-BREEDING.

sought is to keep the stock in good condition,
and hence all specially stimulating, heating,
and fat-producing food should be avoided so
far as possible.

The great problems of feeding are connected
with the fattening of market cattle, and, inter-
esting as they are, lie beyond the proper pur-
view of this work. The fat-stock shows have
thrown a flood of light on these matters, and
it is perhaps not too much to hope that the
day is not far distant when more systematized
and scientific, and consequently more econom-
ical, methods of feeding will generally prevail.
What the practical breeder most needs to learn
as to feeding may be summed up in two words:
liberality and self-restraint. No man can ever
afford to stint his stock, nor yet to overfeed
them. Our cattle must have a liberal amount
of good, wholesome food, fed with regularity.
They want, on the other hand, just as little
pampering as possible. Liberality does not
mean wastefulness. Thorough-paced economy
is not only consistent with it, it is even its
twin virtue. Nor yet does self-restraint mean
niggardliness. It is no doubt true that the
middle road is ill-defined. It is quite as true
that it is the best road. It takes patient study,
watchfulness and work to keep to it. But then
cattle-feeding is a practical man's occupation,
not a holiday recreation.

INDEX.

Abortion, 354; sporadic type, 355: epizootic, 357; treatment of,

356-358.

Afterbirth (placenta), removal of, 342; in case of abortion, 356.
Agriculture, improvements in, in eighteenth century, 15.
Albion (14), the bull, 170.
Allen, Lewis F., "History of Short-horn Cattle," cited, 158, et

passim.

"Alloy" cross, the, 198.

Angus cattle, the Aberdeen or Polled, 200, 203, 247.
Atavism, defined, 39; Darwin's definition of, 39; Kibot's definition,

44; in Short-horn cattle, 42; Darwin's divisions of, 42; in various

animals, 43, et seq. ; infrequency of, 82.
Averages, doctrine of, in relation to improvement of stock, 56.

Bakewell, Robert, 15, 88, 96, 144, 151, 189.

Barmpton Rose, Short-horn tribe, 55, 180, 222.

Baron Butterfly, the bull, 51, 55, 137, 222, 229.

Bates, Thomas, 108, 153; his breeding methods, 154, et seq., 176, 177,

199.

Bell's "History of Short-horns," 155, et passim.
Ben (70), the bull, 151, 164, 170.
Booth herds, the, 164, et seq.
Booth, Thomas, 93, 153, 164, 168, 177, 182.
Booths, the younger (J. B. and Richard), 164, 173, 176.
Breeding animals, selection of, 246, et seq.; in general, 248; the bull,

279; shelter for, 298; general care of, 313; feeding of, 370.
Breeding of cattle, its dignity as a calling, 12; early development of,

13; the science of, 16; the art of, 19.

Breeding methods (see inbreeding, line breeding, etc.), 185, et seq.
Breeds of cattle, described by Pliny, etc., 14; in Europe, 14, 15, et

seq.; Short-horn or Durham, 50, 94, 129, 148, 200, 213, 247, 250,

253, 263; Longhorn, 88, 94, 96, 193; Hereford, 194, 200, 203, 211,

247, 250; Polled Angus, 200, 203, 247; Jersey, 212, 247, 250; Hol-

stein-Friesian, 200, 203, 247; Galloway, 247, 250.
Bull, breeding, selection of, 279; prepotency in, 286; temper in, 292;

service of, 361; fitting for exhibition, 365.

Calves, care of, 314, et seq.; milk diet for, 317; weaning of, 319;

skim- milk ration, 321; feeding of, 327; fitting for exhibition,

329; breaking to halter, 332.
Calving, care at time of, 315, 340.
Care of cattle, general, 313, et seq.; of calves, 314; of heifers, 333; of

cows, 344; of bulls, 358.

Carr's, "History of the Booth Herds," 94, 168, 171, et passim.

(387)

388 INDEX.

Champion England, the bull, 140, 182, 186.

Chartley herd, the, 115.

Chillinsrham herd, the, 115, 180.

Clay, Henry, imports Hereford cattle, 194.

Colling, Robert and Charles, 53, 93, 145/e* seq., 168, 177, 182, 198.

Columella, 14.

Comet (155), the bull, 150, 186, 198.

Comet Halley Jr., the bull, 51, 53.

Correlation of parts in animals, 74.

Cossack, the bull, 51, 53.

Cregan, the horse, 32.

Cross breeding, 187, 190, et seq.

Cruickshank, Amos, 140, 177.

Darwin, Charles, on heredity, 27, 31, 32, 115; on atavism, 39, 41; on
prepotency, 49, 59; on variation, 68; on value of outcrosses, 126;
on Thomas Bates' breeding, 157, 162; on breeds of cattle, 186.

Dixon, H. H. ("The Druid"), quoteJ, 117, 161, 165, 173.

Duchess family, the, breeding of, 158, et seq.

Duke of Grasmere 2d, the bull, 54.

Duthie, William, 184.

Ensilage, 382.

Fairholme family, the, 166.

Fanny Forester, the cow, 135.

Favorite (252), the bull, 50, 92, 146, 149, 198, 228.

Feeding methods, 370, et seq.

Frederick (1060), the bull, 53, 161.

Galloway cattle, the, 247, 250.

Galton, Francis, 99.

George III, King of England, atavic inheritance in, 40.

Giron de Buzareinques quoted, 58.

Goldfinder, the bull, 51, 52.

Grades, the breeding of, 202.

Grasmere herd, the sires used in, 50, et seq.

Gwynne tribe, the, 231, 255.

Hapsburgh, house of, prepotency of, 56.

Heifers, general care of, 333; breeding of, 336; care of at calving

time, 339.
Heredity, definition of, 23; universality of, 24; in man, 28; in horses,

29; in cattle, 30; general character of, 26, et seq.; of diseases, 30;

indeterminate character of, 34, et seq.; application of, 81.
Hereford cattle, 194, 200, 203, 211, 247, 250.
Hubback, the bull, 92, 93, 146, 186, 228.

Inbreeding, 86, 106, 183, 185; decay consequent npon, 97; in swine,
100; in cattle, 157, 162, 177, 182; theory of, 104; evils of, 126; con-
sensus of opinion on, 127.

In-and-in breeding, 86, 87; and as under title "Inbreeding."

Isabella tribe, 166, 175.

Jersey cattle, 212, 247, 250.

Jews, the, intermarriages of, etc., 98.

Jonghe, M. de, on variation, 69.

INDEX. 389

Killerby herd, 171, et seq.
King Ban, the horse, 27, 56.

Lancaster (360), the bull, 150.

Launcelot, the horse, ,56.

Lexington, the horse, 57.

Line breeding, definition of, 106; different views of, 107-116; connec-
tion with inbreeding, 114; recentness of term, 116.

Linton, William, 140.

Longfellow, the horse, 57.

Longhorn cattle, improved by Bakewell, 88-94; decay of, through
inbreeding, 96.

London Duchess tribe, 132, 255.

Mason, Charles, 180, 224, 257.

Matchem, the bull, 171, 172, 175.

Maynard of Ery holme, Mr., 146, 180, 182.

Miles, Prof. Manley, cited, 32, 113, 117, et passim.

Milk fever, treatment of, 342.

Milk production, relation to beef production, 76, 195, note; fostering

of, 346; rations for, 348; water needed for, 349.
Mixed breeding, 120.
Muscatoon, the bull, 51, 54, 134, 286.
Mussulman, the bull, 171, 175.

Nathusius, Hermann von, opposed to inbreeding, 128, 164.

Natural breeding, defined, 120; distinguished from cross breeding
and mixed breeding, 120, 121; compared with natural selection,
121, et seq. ; contrasted with inbreeding, 123, et seq.

Nautilus, the example of variation, 72.

Nesbit, Mr., cited, 305.

Oliver, the bull, 51.

Outcrossiag, 120, et seq.; contrasted with inbreeding, 123, et seq.; as
betwean distinct breeds, 187, 190.

Patton stock, the, 192.

Pedigree, 215, et seq.; definition of, 215; value of, 217; forms of, 222;

character of, 251; importance of in selection of breeding animals,

248.

Philip II of Macedon, hereditary character of his genius, 99.
PigeoES, variations in, 75.
Pliny, 14.

Plutarch, remarkable case of atavism reported by, 40.
Powell cattle, the, 51.

Prepotency, 49, et seq. ; definition of, 49; in the Short-horn, 50, 82.
Princess tribe, 231, 255.
Ptolemy, dynasty of, 99.

Ration, meaning of term, 375; practical, 376; tables of, 383.
Regulus, cross-bred steer, 211.
Renick, Abram, 52.

Renick, the bull, 51; great prepotency of, 54, 208.
Reversion (see atavism), 39, et seq.

Ribot, T., definition of atavism, 44; remarkable case of atavism cited
by, 46.

390

INDEX.

Selection, natural, 24, 188; of breeding animals, 246, et seq.

"Seventeen," importation of, 193.

Shakespeare, the bull, 89, 145.

Sheep, prepotency of some breeds, 58; crosses among, 194; effect of
shelter upon when fattening, 305.

Shelter, 298, et seq.; for milch cows, 348.

Short-horn cattle, prepotent power of, 50, 94; types of, 129, 263; early
history, 148; crosses of, 200; families of, 213; valuable qualities
of, 247; milking qualities, 250; pedigrees of, 253.

Sinclair, Sir John, on cross breeding, 201.

Sir Arthur Ingram, the bull, 140.

Soiling, 381.

Stewart, Prof. Elliott W., cited, 349, 383, et passim.

Studley, the, bull or bulls, 217, 227.

Studley herd, the, 166, 171.

Thoroughbred horse, the, pedigrees of, 95.
Townley herd, 180.
Torr, William, 174, 180.
Touchstone, the horse, 56.

Variation, 61; definition of, 62; causes of, 63; classes of, 64; impor-
tance of, 83.

Warlaby herd, the, 171.

Wetherell, Mr., 180.

Whitaker, Jonas, 51, 224.

"Wild White Cattle, the, Darwin's description of, 115; becoming

extinct, 118.
Youatt, W., quoted, 88, 90, 127.

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