170 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



what importance should be accorded it in their selection of founda- 

 tion animals. 



Since heredity is the base of all breeding operations in the 

 selection of foundation animals, attention should be paid, of course, 

 to the sire and dam, and if convenient, to the grandsire and grand- 

 dam, because it is the few top crosses in the pedigree that reallj'' 

 influence the character of the off'spring. Following the theory 

 that something cannot come from nothing, I go so far as to say that 

 one can make a successful breeder and leave pedigree absolutely 

 alone in the selection of his foundation animals, and this is the 

 encouragement I have to offer the young man considering the 

 breeding of some particular line of live stock. 



You should, and perhaps many of you do, aspire to taking up 

 that sort of a line, and from the little attention you have given to 

 the subject of pedigrees, you may wonder what is the fashionable 

 pedigree which you should have in your foundation animals, 

 .but the advice, if I may be allowed to term it such, or rather 

 the suggestion I would make, is that when you go out to select 

 your animals you leave pedigree absolutely alone. When you go, 

 go to a man of repute, a breeder who has made a success of the 

 particular line of stock he may be handling. He has in his herd 

 pedigrees of good quality. Breeders of repute would not have ani- 

 mals descending from questionable origin, and I would then place 

 this definition on a pedigree: "Pedigree is absolutely nothing 

 more or less — speaking of a good pedigree — than an extra indi- 

 vidual and an honest breeder behind it." 



Too many people allow the importance of the previous record 

 of an imported dam in a pedigree to influence their selection of 

 animals. For instance, take Young Mary in shorthorns. She was 

 a great cow in her time and a cow that gave birth to seventeen 

 calves, though the fact that Young Mary was a great cow ninety- 

 five years ago would have absolutely no eff'ect on the offspring of 

 her family today. 



Now, the thing I want to impress upon you, if I can, is that 

 pedigree has very little to do with the success of a breeder. In 

 starting out, if he will simply leave pedigree alone and trust the 

 man of whom he is buying his animals, if the breeder is a man of 

 repute, and the pedigree comes up to the requirements of the herd 

 book register for the required number of generations, and all that 

 — if he will simply select individuality and then apply the proper 

 methods in the handling of these cattle, in their breeding and feed- 

 ing, there is no question but that man will make a success ; and by 



