The Principles of Breeding | Page 4

three hundred dollars at interest besides? If the
first just pays for her food and attendance, the second, yielding

two-fifths more, pays forty per cent. profit annually; and yet how many
farmers having two such cows for sale would make more than ten, or
twenty, or at most, thirty dollars difference in the price? The profit
from one is eighteen dollars a year--in ten years one hundred and eighty
dollars, besides the annual accumulations of interest--the profit of the
other is--nothing. If the seller has need to keep one, would he not be
wiser to give away the first, than to part with the second for a hundred
dollars?
Suppose again, that an acre of grass or a ton of hay costs five dollars,
and that for its consumption by a given set of animals, the farmer gets a
return of five dollars worth of labor, or meat, or wool, or milk. He is
selling his crop at cost, and makes no profit. Suppose by employing
other animals, better horses, better cows, oxen and sheep, he can get ten
dollars per ton in returns. How much are the latter worth more than the
former? Have they not doubled the value of the crops, and increased the
profit of farming from nothing to a hundred per cent? Except that the
manure is not doubled, and the animals would some day need to be
replaced, could he not as well afford to give the price of his farm for
one set as to accept the other as a gift?
Among many, who are in fact ignorant of what goes to constitute merit
in a breeding animal, there is an inclination to treat as imaginary and
unreal the higher values placed upon well-bred animals over those of
mixed origin, unless they are larger and handsomer in proportion to the
price demanded. The sums paid for qualities which are not at once
apparent to the eye are stigmatized as fancy prices. It is not denied that
fancy prices are sometimes, perhaps often paid, for there are probably
few who are not willing occasionally to pay dearly for what merely
pleases them, aside from any other merit commensurate to the price.
But, on the other hand, it is fully as true that great intrinsic value for
breeding purposes may exist in an animal and yet make very little show.
Such an one may not even look so well to a casual observer, as a grade,
or cross-bred animal, which although valuable as an individual, is not,
for breeding purposes, worth a tenth part as much.
Let us suppose two farmers to need a bull; they go to seek and two are

offered, both two years old, of similar color, form and general
appearance. One is offered for twenty dollars--for the other a hundred
is demanded. Satisfactory evidence is offered that the latter is no better
than any or all of its ancestors for many generations back on both sides,
or than its kindred--that it is of a pure and distinct breed, that it
possesses certain well known hereditary qualities, that it is suited for a
definite purpose, it may be a Short-horn, noted for large size and early
maturity, it may be a Devon, of fine color and symmetry, active and
hardy, it may be an Ayrshire, noted for dairy qualities, or of some other
definite breed, whose uses, excellencies and deficiencies are all well
known.
The other is of no breed whatever, perhaps it is called a grade or a cross.
The man who bred it had rather confused ideas, so far as he had any,
about breeding, and thought to combine all sorts of good qualities in
one animal, and so he worked in a little grade Durham, or Hereford to
get size, and a little Ayrshire for milk, and a little Devon for color, and
so on, using perhaps dams sired by a bull in the neighborhood which
had also got some "Whitten"[1] or "Peter Waldo" calves, (though none
of these showed it,) at any rate he wanted some of the "native" element
in his stock, because it was tough, and some folks thought natives were
the best after all. Among its ancestors and kindred were some good and
some not good, some large and some small, some well favored and fat,
some ill favored and lean, some profitable and some profitless. The
animal now offered is a great deal better than the average of them. It
looks for aught they can see, about as well as the one for which five
times his price is asked. Perhaps he served forty cows last year and
brought his owner as many quarters, while the other only served five
and brought an income of but five dollars. The question arises, which is
the better bargain? After