258 STATE BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



rank; in the second list all of low rank, and I wish so to be understood. 

 Now it is the experience of men who have most improved our stock, that 

 animals bred in a line with reference to some particular feature, acquire the 

 power of transmitting that feature to their progeny with great certainty. It 

 is also their experience that after years of careful breeding in a line, so that 

 character has become fixed, and the force of hereditary transmission is strong, 

 a single cross will break up all this certainty for time indefinite. As good 

 authority as Joseph Harris, "On the Pig," page 78, reads: "The improved 

 Berkshire boar was used to give size and constitution many years ago to the 

 Essex, and the most eminent breeder of Essex has informed me that on one 

 occasion in a litter of Essex pigs, two little pictures of the Berkshire boar, 

 their remote ancestor by at least 28 years, appeared." This naturally draws 

 out an illustration of the value of an animal as certified to by pedigree. 



As a rule common stock has no record of breeding, while pure breeds have 

 such record, and as proof thereof you are usually referred to some herd-book 

 published in the interest of a class of people whom I have found extremely 

 and justly jealous of the attainments of their live stock. Technically, in my 

 opinion, pedigree adds no value to an animal, but is proof of qualities delegated 

 to an animal by a lono; line of ancestors, possessing more or less uniform 

 characteristics of a given standard. If that uniformity has been invariable 

 and unbroken, we say the pedigree is good, and we may safely expect an 

 animal possessed of such pedigree to transmit the ancestoral type to his 

 progeny ; we may even expect this when the particular animal in question is 

 an accidental exception to his family, i. e., he is individually deficient in 

 external characteristics. On the contrary, when pedigree associates ancestors 

 of dissimilar characteristics, we say *' pedigree is poor," and if 'some of those 

 ancestors, though remote, are very inferior, we may expect a pup and a pig 

 in the same litter. This at once suggests the impropriety of expecting great 

 things from an animal, because he brings a written document certifying his 

 sire to have been Lord so and so, and his dam Lady somebody. True it 

 indicates special qualities upon which value depends, and if we investigate and 

 find this pedigree recorded in a herd-book, we have indications of greater 

 value; and when we go farther and study the individuals mentioned in that 

 pedigree and find them all good, we have further indications of value, and so 

 on we may trace back this history to time limited only by the non-existence of 

 further records, constantly adding to or detracting from the probable value 

 of the present animal in question. But the final proof of the true value of 

 the pure bred animal is in the stock which follow him (his descendants), and 

 when a community of farmers have in their midst a male animal which thus 

 proves himself of especial value, no inducement should be allowed to take that 

 animal from them, whether he be "pedigreed" or not. 



Several years ago Sheldon Ashley, of Gratton, purchased an ordinary look- 

 ing Suffolk boar, which was crossed with the common swine of that vicinity 

 for three or four years. I am informed that he sired 1,500 pigs. I am 

 informed not one possessed a colored hair (though from sows of every color), 

 and that there was not one poor pig among them. Any one who saw one of 

 those pigs could tell how the other 1,499 looked. 



My father (James Taylor, of Eureka), raised 50 of those pigs from a large 

 black and white sow, and that you may better understand their quality, 

 I present a portrait of the only survivor of the 50 (except one now owned, 

 I believe, by Geo. S. llosevelt, of Eureka). These pigs, when dressed at 10 to 

 15 months old, have averaged about 250 pounds a piece, and have invariably 



