112 BOAED OK AGRICULTURE. 



know that in each case the male aud female in each successive 

 generation have been alike and of good quality. We have just 

 heard that there are some monkeys with long tails, and some 

 monkeys with stump tails. Now, if the male and female 

 monkey are not alike, you do not expect to get a monkey 

 like either of his parents ; necessarily, you get something 

 which is unlike those parents. The oifspring is not like the 

 parents, simply because the parents were not alike them- 

 selves. 



I might illustrate this, perhaps, in a way which would bring 

 it to the practical knowledge of every man a little more defi- 

 nitely in this way : We might suppose that a certain male, 

 after a certain number of generations, has the hereditary 

 power strongly concentrated in his system. If he is the off- 

 spring of parents, grandparents and great-grandparents which 

 have been alike in both cases, he has the hereditary power^ 

 that is, the power of transmitting his qualities, very strongly 

 marked and intensified in his system — more strongly than 

 it was in his parents, grandparents or great-grandparents. 

 Now, suppose the power which this male animal has of trans- 

 mitting his essential qualities to his oifspring could be repre- 

 sented to the eye. This power has a money-value in breeding. 

 Let us suppose it could be represented to the eye. Suppose, 

 for instance, we call his hereditary power equal to 100. Now, 

 suppose the female to which he is put has been bred dififer- 

 ently ; suppose she has been cross-bred, just as the common 

 stock of the country, or what we call native sheep, have been 

 bred, without any system, without any care to couple animals 

 which are absolutely and essentially alike ; of course the hered- 

 itary power of that female will be very much less than the 

 hereditary power of the male, because the hereditary line — 

 the power of transmitting qualities — ^has been broken, aud 

 has been greatly reduced. We will suppose, for instance, 

 that her power of hereditary transmission — her power of trans- 

 mitting her qualities, her peculiar characteristics, to her off- 

 spring, is only 60 instead of 100. Now, these two animals are 

 coupled together. What is the ofispring ? The ofispring will 

 possess a hereditary power not like its male parent ; it will 

 possess a hereditary power — that is, a power of transmitting its 

 characteristics to its offspring — not represented by the 100, not 



