180 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



judge wholly from the form and apparent qualities of the 

 animal, because many of the most valuable characteristics of a 

 breeding animal are latent and hidden. We are compelled to 

 fall back upon what we know of the history of the individual 

 animal, or the length of time it has been bred with care, to 

 judge of its capability of transmitting its peculiar qualities, 

 relying upon the knowledge we have of the general principles of 

 breeding, that the qualities sought are inherent and well fixed 

 in the system. 



In breeding, therefore, the first important rule is to breed 

 only from the best, but not merely the best looking, or the animal 

 that fills the eye the most completely, but from one that has the 

 capacity of transmitting his good qualities in the highest degree, 

 and the strongest evidence of this is the knowledge we have of 

 the qualities of his ancestors for several generations, unless we 

 have some of his stock to tell as plain a story to the practised 

 eye of a judge of cattle. 



The quality of what is called a pedigree is 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 animal, but the longer it is the better, pro- 

 vided it shows a high character in the ancestry, because the 

 hereditary power is cumulative, and 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. In breeding 

 dairy stock it is of special importance to study and to know the 

 quality of the stock from which the male has descended. 



The milking qualities of the cow are not confined to any par- 

 ticular race or class of stock, but exist to a greater or less 

 extent in all the well established breeds, and in cows of no 

 known breed, like the common stock of the country, but some 

 classes or families have been raised with greater attention to 

 this point than others, so that high dairy qualities have become 

 the rule in 6ome breeds while they are the exception in others. 

 In other words, though the secretion of milk is natural and 

 common to all animals that suckle their young, the extra- 

 ordinary development of this secretion is artificial, — the result of 

 care and breeding. The quantity of milk which a cow is capable 

 of secreting depends much upon the supply of blood which 



