No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 341 



PEDIGREE REGISTRATION. 



By DR. CARL W. GAY, PMladelphia. 



The best example of what I want to talk to you about this after- 

 noon, is shown by a certain breed of fat hogs, which are called by the 

 packers "Al Barrows." In one case I know of they were fattened 

 by one of the best breeders in the country, and they were part of a 

 herd where they were not used as boars. In other words, they were 

 part of a herd where pure bred boars were not used. They were Berk- 

 shires, but they were bred by a man who never kept any records of 

 his hogs. He knew they were pure bred Berkshires because he had 

 never kept anything else, but he could not prove their breeding, and 

 that is why they were barrows. The best hog grown by that man 

 Avould not meet the market requirements of pure bred, because no 

 records have been kept. 



I can match this with an illustration from my own experience. 

 Some time ago we wanted a pair of Percherons for class work, and 

 searched over the State for them. We finally came to a place in 

 Ohio where we found a pair of very superior fillies, better than any- 

 thing we had ever seen. We were pleased in looking over these 

 fillies, and then made inquiry "of course their papers are all 

 straight?" He said, "Well, I know they are pure bred; my mares 

 are all pure bred, and I have never used anything but pure bred 

 horses, but I have no records of them." It cost that man the differ- 

 ence between |600, which would have been a fair price had they been 

 registered, and the ordinary market value of |225. Now, we can 

 talk about the advantages of our pure bred livestock, and that is 

 all very well, but it has cost many a man hundreds, even thousands 

 of dollars, by belonging to that class of breeders who have not kept 

 up their records, and it is this neglect, and this apparent indiffer- 

 ence that has led to the matter we are discussing today. 



The question naturally arises, "What is the real importance of 

 a paper?" A pedigree is nothing more or less than a record of an- 

 cestry. But what do I care about ancestry? I am going ahead, not 

 back. But here is the point; your ancestry reflects your progeny. 

 You have a bull you want to use; he stands between his ancestry and 

 his progeny that come from him. He is like the sand in the two sec- 

 tions of the hour-glass. Everything in that glass concentrates in 

 the constricted neck; so all the forces of that ancestry concentrate 

 in that one animal. All the traits manifested by those ancestors 

 are shown in this animal, and this animal will be repeated in his pro- 

 geny, and, of course, it is in the progeny that we are most concerned. 

 Ample reason, this, why this pedigree registration is of the utmost 

 importance. 



Now, there are two kinds of paper, unofficial and oflScial. An un- 

 oflBcial record simply has the value of a memorandum. I don't be- 

 lieve that you can know what I do in regard to this one thing, but 

 our experience this past year has shown us very clearly the indiffer- 

 ence or inaccuracy of the horsemen in this respect. The law requires 

 that they send us a pedigree oertiflc«te, and it would iurprise yon 



