The Principles of Breeding | Page 2

in the shortest time the largest quantity and best quality of beef, mutton or milk, with the largest profit to the producer and at least cost to the consumer." But this is not precisely the problem for American farmers to solve, because our circumstances are different. Few, if any, here grow oxen for beef alone, but for labor and beef, so that earliest possible maturity may be omitted and a year or more of labor profitably intervene before conversion to beef. Many cultivators of sheep, too, are so situated as to prefer fine wool, which is incompatible with the largest quantity and best quality of meat. Others differently situated in regard to a meat market would do well to follow the English practice and aim at the most profitable production of mutton. A great many farmers, not only of those in the vicinity of large towns, but of those at some distance, might, beyond doubt, cultivate dairy qualities in cows, to great advantage, and this too, even, if necessary, at the sacrifice, to considerable extent, of beef making qualities. As a general thing dairy qualities have been sadly neglected in years past.
Whatever may be the object in view, it should be clearly apprehended, and striven for with persistent and well directed efforts. To buy or breed common animals of mixed qualities and use them for any and for all purposes is too much like a manufacturer of cloth procuring some carding, spinning and weaving machinery, adapted to no particular purpose but which can somehow be used for any, and attempting to make fabrics of cotton, of wool, and of linen with it. I do not say that cloth would not be produced, but he would assuredly be slow in getting rich by it.
The stock grower needs not only to have a clear and definite aim in view, but also to understand the means by which it may best be accomplished. Among these means a knowledge of the principles of breeding holds a prominent place, and this is not of very easy acquisition by the mass of farmers. The experience of any one man would go but a little way towards acquiring it, and there has not been much published on the subject in any form within the reach of most. I have been able to find nothing like an extended systematic treatise on the subject, either among our own or the foreign agricultural literature which has come within my notice. Indeed, from the scantiness of what appears to have been written, coupled with the fact that much knowledge must exist somewhere, one is tempted to believe that not all which might have done so, has yet found its way to printers' ink. That a great deal has been acquired, we know, as we know a tree--by its fruits. That immense achievements have been accomplished is beyond doubt.
The improvement of the domestic animals of a country so as greatly to enhance their individual and aggregate value, and to render the rearing of them more profitable to all concerned, is surely one of the achievements of advanced civilization and enlightenment, and is as much a triumph of science and skill as the construction of a railroad, a steamship, an electric telegraph, or any work of architecture. If any doubt this, let them ponder the history of those breeds of animals which have made England the stock nursery of the world, the perfection of which enables her to export thousands of animals at prices almost fabulously beyond their value for any purpose but to propagate their kind; let them note the patient industry, the genius and application which have been put forth to bring them to the condition they have attained, and their doubts must cease.
Robert Bakewell of Dishley, was one of the first of these improvers. Let us stop for a moment's glance at him. Born in 1725, on the farm where his father and grandfather had been tenants, he began at the age of thirty to carry out the plans for the improvement of domestic animals upon which he had resolved as the result of long and patient study and reflection. He was a man of genius, energy and perseverance. With sagacity to conceive and fortitude to perfect his designs, he laid his plans and struggled against many disappointments, amid the ridicule and predictions of failure freely bestowed by his neighbors,--often against serious pecuniary embarrassments; and at last was crowned by a wonderful degree of success. When he commenced letting his rams, (a system first introduced by him and adhered to during his life, in place of selling,) they brought him 17s. 6d. each, for the season. This was ten years after he commenced his improvements. Soon the price came to a guinea, then to two or three guineas--rapidly increasing with