190 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



back, unless, indeed, some of his stock can be seen to tell as 

 plain a story to the practised eye of a judge of stock. 



We have often heard practical men, intelligent men, who 

 profess to know something about stock, and who ought to 

 to know better, say, " I don't care any thing about your pedi- 

 gree : let me see the animal, and I can tell whether I want 

 to breed from him or not." Let us not deceive ourselves by 

 any such assumption, from whatever source it may happen 

 to come. It will be sure to lead to frequent disappointment ; 

 for, as we have shown, an animal may possess an almost 

 faultless form, and strike the eye of even the most experi- 

 enced judge as possessing remarkably line qualitico, and 

 indeed really possess them, and yet have no fixity of type, 

 no great liereditary power ; when, if put to a low or ill-bred 

 female, he will be more likely than not to get poor stock, or, 

 at any rate, there will be no reasonable certainty of transmit- 

 ting his own qualities. 



The importance of the greatest care in the selection of the 

 male will be apparent from the fact that his influence extends 

 to a far more numerous progeny. He should not only possess 

 in the highest degree the good qualities sought after in the 

 class of animals .to which he belongs, but he should possess 

 the power of transmitting them in the highest degree ; and 

 as this power u latent or hidden, and does not appear to the 

 eye, it h to be judged either from the stock already got, or 

 more commonly from the qualities of his ancestors through 

 several generations. And here, again, the quality of the 

 pedigree — that is, the quality of the ancestry — u more 

 important than its length. It is of little use or satisfaction 

 to trace a pedigree back through inferior or ill-bred stock, 

 except as a warning against the use of the male at the end 

 of it. 



At the same time, the longer it is, the better, provided it 

 shows a high character in the ancestry ; for we have seen 

 that the hereditary power, or capacity for transmission, is 

 cumulative ; that is, becomes stronger, and more intense and 

 fixed, from generation to generation, where the respective 

 parents possess similarity of characteristics, as is commonly 

 the case in our well-established breeds. 



I have said that the choice of the male to breed from is 

 of special importance, because of the great extent of hia 



