SECRETARY'S REPORT. 87 



every animal with a long pedigree full of high-sounding names is 

 necessarily of great value as a breeder, for in every race or breed, 

 as we have seen while speaking of the law of variation, there will 

 be here and there some which are less perfect and symmetrical of 

 their kind than others ; and if such be bred from, they may likely 

 enough transmit undesirable points ; and if they be mated with 

 others possessing similar failings, they are almost sure to deterio- 

 rate very considerably. 



Pedigree is valuable in proportion as it shows an animal to be 

 descended, not only from such as are purely of its own race or 

 breed, but also from such individuals in that breed as were specially 

 noted for the excellencies for which that particular breed is es- 

 teemed. Weeds are none the less worthless because they appear 

 among a crop consisting chiefly of valuable plants, nor should de- 

 formed or degenerate plants, although they be true to their kind, 

 ever be employed to produce seed. If we would have good cab- 

 bages or turnips, it is needful to select the most perfect and the 

 soundest to grow seed from, and to continue such selection year 

 after year. 



The pertinacity with which hereditary traits cling to the organi- 

 zation in a latent, masked or undeveloped condition for long after 

 they might be supposed to be wholly "bred out" is sometimes 

 very remarkable. What is known among breeders of Short-horns 

 as the "Galloway alio}'," although originating by the employment 

 for only once of a single animal of a different breed, is said to be 

 traceable even now, after many years, in the occasional develop- 

 ment of a "smutty nose" in descendants of that family. 



Many years ago thei-e were in Kennebec county a few polled or 

 hornless cattle. They were not particularly cherished, and gradu- 

 ally diminished in numbers. Mr. Payne Wingate shot the last 

 animal of this breed, (a bull calf or a yeai^ling,) mistaking it in the 

 dark for a bear. During thirty-five years subsequently all the cat- 

 tle on his farm had horns, but at the end of that time one of his 

 cows produced a calf which grew up without horns, and Mr. Win- 

 gate said it was, in all respects, the exact image of the first bull of 

 the breed brought there. 



Probably the most familiar exemplification of clearly marked 

 ancestral influence among us, is to be found in the ill-begotten, 

 round-breeched calves occasionally, and not very unfrequently, 

 dropped by cows of the common mixed kind, and which, if killed 

 early, make very blue veal, and if allowed to grow up, become the 



