Live-Stock Genetics 



23 



SIRE OF A NEW BREED 



Pure-bred fat-runiped ram from Siberia, owned by the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, and expected to aid in the production of a type of sheep that will be able to with- 

 stand the severe winters of that state successfully. The Fatrump breecis of Siberia are 

 noted for their hardiness: when the food supply is entirely cut off by snow, they are able to 

 subsist for some time on the fat stored in the rump. It is hoped that this valuable char- 

 acteristic can be retained in the hybrids bred in the United States. (Fig. 11.) 



nized that if the experience of stock- 

 breeders extending throughout the 

 world, and as far back as trustworthy 

 data are available, means anything at 

 all it plainly indicates that some degree 

 of inbreeding is essential to the attain- 

 ment of the highest degree of success 

 in the breeding of animals, poultry 

 forming no exception to this rule."' 



STUDIES OF CATTLE. 



At the Massachusetts station an 

 attempt is being made to work out a 

 comprehensive correlation between 

 Dairy Form of cattle (as called for 



in the show ring, and in text books) and 

 butter-fat and milk production. This 

 work is necessarily statistical and in- 

 cludes complete measurements of a 

 large number of cows on which produc- 

 tion records have been maintained for 

 three or more years. The object is 

 twofold: to seek a clue to the mode of 

 inheritance of milk and butter-fat 

 production in dairy cattle, and to 

 determine whether the present standards 

 of jtidging dairy cattle are really based 

 on sound genetic knowledge. Studies 

 in the inheritance of coat color in 

 mammals are also under way, and 

 furnish material for an incidental inves- 



' "Of course," Pearl notes, "if the term inbreeding makes too violent a strain upon anyone's 

 intellectual, moral or merely human prejudices, there is no objection to his using for the practice 

 the term line-breeding, or some other even milder designation." 



