The Principles of Breeding | Page 5

pondering the matter, one buys the low-priced
and the other the high-priced one, both being well satisfied in their own
minds.
What did results show? The low-priced one served that season perhaps
a hundred cows; more than ought to have done so, came a second
time;--having been overtasked as a yearling, he lacked somewhat of
vigor. The calves came of all sorts, some good, some poor, a few like

the sire, more like the dams--all mongrels and showing mongrel origin
more than he did. There seemed in many of them a tendency to
combine the defects of the grades from which he sprung rather than
their good points. In some, the quietness of the Short-horn degenerated
into stupidity, and in others the activity of the Devon into nervous
viciousness. Take them together they perhaps paid for rearing, or nearly
so. After using him another year, he was killed, having been used long
enough.
The other, we will say, served that same season a reasonable number,
perhaps four to six in a week, or one every day, not more. Few came a
second time and those for no fault of his. The calves bear a striking
resemblance to the sire. Some from the better cows look even better in
some points, than himself and few much worse. There is a remarkable
uniformity among them; as they grow up they thrive better than those
by the low priced one. They prove better adapted to the use intended.
On the whole they are quite satisfactory and each pays annually in its
growth, labor or milk a profit over the cost of food and attendance of
five or ten dollars or more. If worked enough to furnish the exercise
needful to insure vigorous health, he may be as serviceable and as
manageable at eight or ten years old, as at two; meantime he has got,
perhaps, five hundred calves, which in due time become worth ten or
twenty dollars each more than those from the other. Which now seems
the wiser purchase? Was the higher estimate placed on the well bred
animal based upon fancy or upon intrinsic value?
The conviction that a better knowledge of the principles of breeding
would render our system of agriculture more profitable, and the hope of
contributing somewhat to this end, have induced the attempt to set forth
some of the physiological principles involved in the reproduction of
domestic animals, or in other words, the laws which govern hereditary
transmission.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Local names for lyery, or black fleshed cattle.
CHAPTER II.

THE LAW OF SIMILARITY.
The first and most important of the laws to be considered in this
connection is that of SIMILARITY. It is by virtue of this law that the
peculiar characters, qualities and properties of the parents, whether
external or internal, good or bad, healthy or diseased, are transmitted to
their offspring. This is one of the plainest and most certain of the laws
of nature. Children resemble their parents, and they do so because these
are hereditary. The law is constant. Within certain limits progeny
always and every where resemble their parents. If this were not so,
there would be no constancy of species, and a horse might beget a calf
or a sow have a litter of puppies, which is never the case,--for in all
time we find repeated in the offspring the structure, the instincts and all
the general characteristics of the parents, and never those of another
species. Such is the law of nature and hence the axiom that "like
produces like." But while experience teaches the constancy of
hereditary transmission, it teaches just as plainly that the constancy is
not absolute and perfect, and this introduces us to another law, viz: that
of variation, which will be considered by and by; our present concern is
to ascertain what we can of the law of similarity.
The lesson which this law teaches might be stated in five words, to wit:
Breed only from the best--but the teaching may be more impressive,
and will more likely be heeded, if we understand the extent and scope
of the law.
Facts in abundance show the hereditary tendency of physical, mental
and moral qualities in men, and very few would hesitate to admit that
the external form and general characteristics of parents descend to
children in both the human and brute races; but not all are aware that
this law reaches to such minute particulars as facts show to be the case.
We see hereditary transmission of a peculiar type upon an extensive
scale, in some of the distinct races, the Jews, and the Gypsies, for
example. Although exposed for centuries to the modifying influences
of diverse climates, to association with peoples of widely differing
customs and habits, they never merge their peculiarities in those of