188 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. . 



seen the ram possessed a greatly superior hereditary power. 

 To the eye he may look very like his father : but the heredi- 

 tary capacity of this lamb will be greatly reduced, and his 

 power of transmitting his peculiar characteristics will be 

 represented by 100 —60=. 40. He may still look to the eye 

 about as good as his father ; but he will possess less than 

 half of his father's hereditary power, and less even than that 

 of his mother. In other words, he may have all the per- 

 fection of form and marked characteristics; but his power 

 of transmitting these peculiarities will be only in the j)ro- 

 portion of 40 to 100, and for a breeding animal to get 

 stock from he will be worth less than half as much as Ms 

 sire. 



In other words, if you select animals of a similarity of 

 type, that is, if the likeness is strongly marked and well 

 developed in both parents, the young will not only possess 

 the same character as the parents, but it will possess an 

 increased or multiplied power of hereditary transmission of 

 these characteristics. But opposite characteristics mutually 

 weaken each other's influence, and the offspring will have 

 the power of hereditary transmission only in a greatly 

 reduced degree. The exact proportion of this reduction of 

 the power of transmission, or hereditary power, may not be 

 precisely like that stated by Professor Tanner ; but it will 

 correspond with it in the main, and sufficiently for illus- 

 tration. 



These are a few general and well-established principles 

 which have been arrived at by the most skilful and scientific 

 breeders during the last half or three-quarters of a century ; 

 and it would be idle to dispute them, or to deny their force. 



We are to bear in mind also, that this capability of trans- 

 mitting the qualities or characteristics from the parent to the 

 offspring is not limited to any one peculiarity of the animal, 

 — like the secretion of milk, the disposition to take on fat, 

 the strength of constitution, the likeness of figure, or the 

 habit of growth, — but extends to all the characteristic points 

 of the parent animal. All the peculiarities of the system, 

 physical and constitutional, are very largely within our 

 control ; and the character which results will be governed 

 by the tendencies of the parents we select to breed from, and 

 will depend on the adjustment of the balance of qualities, 



