426 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Sunday? I trust von were there. You didn't go to hear something 

 that von didn't know, hut yon went to be put in remembrance oi what 

 you did know, and I came down here to try and stir up your minds 

 by way of remembrance. I tell you, gentlemen, the greal difficulty 

 wiili our farmers, is uol so much in knowing enough, as in remem 

 bering what they do know. 



Prof. Shaw (lien gave the following address: 



BREEDING LIVE STOCK OX THE FARM. 



By Thomas siiaw, Profixsor nf Animal Husbandry, Univenity of Minnesota, St Paul, Minn. 



In sonic respects the rate of breeding is like a great deep hole in 

 which an intellectual giant may sink a thousand fathoms and more at 

 the very first plunge. In other respects it is a broad shallow, in 

 which a child intellectually may wade without any difficulty. In some 

 respects the operation of its laws is so regular and plastic that the 

 skilled breeder may almost mould and fashion at will. In other 

 respects they are so erratic and subtle as to confound the most skill- 

 ful, the results are so different from what he expected. The great 

 ditferences thus resulting in some instances from even skillful breed- 

 ing are doubtless the outcome of laws that are apparently antagon- 

 istic, but not really so. They are apparently so because they are not 

 yet sufficiently understood. It may be that they never will be, but, 

 happily for the breeder, the results from the proper application of 

 principles that are now well understood are so regular and uniform, 

 that the man who diligently applies them, will, with unfailing cer 

 tainty, so improve the average of the animals in his stud, herd or 

 flock, that they will be brought to a higher level. 



LAWS THAT GOVERN BREEDING.. 



The known laws that govern breeding are three in number. They 

 are known respectively as the law, that like produc< s like, the law of 

 variation and the law of atavism. The first and second of these laws 

 are apparently antagonistic. The third, like a pendulum in the 

 operations, swings between the two. 



The law r that like produces like means that the progeny shall be 

 like the parents, not an exact fac-simile, for two parents are never 

 found exactly alike, but in all essential features there will be a close 

 resemblance. This resemblance will, with more or less of uniformity, 

 extend to the physical form, to function, to habit, to disposition, and 

 indeed to every feature ot the organization. This law is the great 

 magna charta of the breeder. The results from the operation of this 

 law are by no means uniform. They will nearly be so, however, in 

 proportion as the parents have been purely bred, in proportion as 

 they have been bred in line without having reached the danger point 

 of weakened stamina, and in proportion as the parents are strong 

 and vigorous. 



The law of variation, or the law that like does not always produce 

 like, is apparently antagonistic to the law of variation. It means that 



