CUMULATIVE HEEEDITARY INrLUT:NCE. Ill 



of his stock, ought to bear in mind that the hereditary power 

 of the animal, — that is, the power of transmitting its qualities 

 to its offspring, — is constantly cumulative ; that is, if the ani- 

 mal has been properly bred. For example, the general law 

 that like produces like is undoubtedly correct, upon general 

 principles ; the difficulty is in our want of knowledge as to 

 the qualities and characteristics of the two animals which are 

 brought together. They may appear to the eye to be alike, 

 and yet there may be essential differences. If they are alike 

 in all their essential peculiarities, the offspring will not only 

 be like the parents, but will have their characteristics much 

 more strongly marked; that is, the essential characteristics in 

 which the parents are alike will be intefisified in the offspring, 

 and therefore the hereditary power of the offspring, that is, 

 the power of transmitting its peculiar qualities, will become 

 stronger and stronger. But if, on the other hand, the parents 

 are not alike, if there are any essential differences between the 

 male and the female, instead of this power becoming stronger 

 and stronger with every successive generation, it will become 

 weaker, it will become broken and very greatly reduced, so 

 that you cannot depend upon it at all. We frequently hear 

 a remark among farmers something like this : " I don't care 

 anything about your pedigree. Let me see the animal, and I 

 can tell whether I want to breed from him or not." Now, 

 there is no gi'eater mistake than that, for the reason that this 

 hereditary power, this power of transmitting the peculiar 

 qualities which we want in the offspring, is latent ; is hidden 

 in the system. You cannot detect it by the eye, you cannot 

 detect it by any known law, except that of hereditary influ- 

 ence ; pedigree, in other words. 



And there comes in another difficulty. We cannot tell 

 whether the pedigree of these two animals — the parents — is 

 perfectly satisfactory or not. It may be as long as the moral 

 law, and yet there may be breaks in it which have constantly 

 reduced and weakened that hereditary power. If we knew 

 positively the peculiar characteristics of all the ancestors of 

 the animals that we are to breed from, then we could tell 

 with some degree of certainty what the result would be ; but 

 the mere fact of a recorded pedigree is not worth anything 

 unless we know the character of that ancestry, — unless we 



