The Principles of Breeding | Page 3

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
the reputation of his stock, until in 1784, they brought him 100 guineas
each! Five years later his lettings for one season amounted to $30,000!
With all his skill and success he seemed afraid lest others might profit
by the knowledge he had so laboriously acquired. He put no pen to
paper and at death left not even the slightest memorandum throwing
light upon his operations, and it is chiefly through his cotemporaries,
who gathered somewhat from verbal communications, that we know
anything regarding them. From these we learn that he formed an ideal
standard in his own mind and then endeavored, first by a wide selection
and a judicious and discriminating coupling, to obtain the type desired,
and then by close breeding, connected with rigorous weeding out, to
perpetuate and fix it.
After him came a host of others, not all of whom concealed their light
beneath a bushel. By long continued and extensive observation,
resulting in the collection of numerous facts, and by the collation of
these facts of nature, by scientific research and practical experiments,
certain physiological laws have been discovered, and principles of
breeding have been deduced and established. It is true that some of
these laws are as yet hidden from us, and much regarding them is but
imperfectly understood. What we do not know is a deal more than what
we do know, but to ignore so much as has been discovered, and is well
established, and can be learned by any who care to do so, and to go on
regardless of it, would indicate a degree of wisdom in the breeder on a
par with that of a builder who should fasten together wood and iron just
as the pieces happened to come to his hand, regardless of the laws of
architecture, and expect a convenient house or a fast sailing ship to be
the result of his labors.

Is not the usual course of procedure among many farmers too nearly
parallel to the case supposed? Let the ill-favored, chance-bred, mongrel
beasts in their barn yards testify. The truth is, and it is of no use to deny
or disguise the fact, the improvement of domestic animals is one of the
most important and to a large extent, one of the most neglected
branches of rural economy. The fault is not that farmers do not keep
stock enough, much oftener they keep more than they can feed to the
most profitable point, and when a short crop of hay comes, there is
serious difficulty in supporting them, or in selling them at a paying
price; but the great majority neither bestow proper care upon the
selection of animals for breeding, nor do they appreciate the dollars and
cents difference between such as are profitable and such as are
profitless. How many will hesitate or refuse to pay a dollar for the
services of a good bull when some sort of a calf can be begotten for a
"quarter?" and this too when one by the good male would be worth a
dollar more for veal and ten or twenty dollars more when grown to a
cow or an ox? How few will hesitate or refuse to allow to a butcher the
cull of his calves and lambs for a few extra shillings, and this when the
butcher's difference in shillings would soon, were the best kept and the
worst sold, grow into as many dollars and more? How many there are
who esteem size to be of more consequence than symmetry, or
adaptation to the use for which they are kept? How many ever sit down
to calculate the difference in money value between an animal which
barely pays for keeping, or perhaps not that, and one which pays a
profit?
Let us reckon a little. Suppose a man wishes to buy a cow. Two are
offered him, both four years old, and which might probably be
serviceable for ten years to come. With the same food and attendance
the first will yield for ten months in the year, an average of five quarts
per day,--and the other for the same term will yield seven quarts and of
equal quality. What is the comparative value of each? The difference in
yield is six hundred quarts per annum. For the purpose of this
calculation we will suppose it worth three cents per quart--amounting
to eighteen dollars. Is not the second cow, while she holds out to give it,
as good as the first, and