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REESE   LIBRARY 

OF  THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Deceived  .....  W|AR  17   [#93  ........  ,  189    . 


O  3.57 


Class  J^ 


o.. 


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 


toon,  a  bull  of  National  reputation  for  his  indi- 
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134  CATTLE-BREEDING. 

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

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Napier  (27310)  with  somewhat  less  success,  but 
still  she  produced  to  him  some  unusually  fine 
animals,  and  with  his  rich  Booth  breeding  he 


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 


CATTLE-BREEDING. 


S        1 

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SIEE  OF  BABON  BUTTEETLY  49871. 


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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