ON BREEDING. 199 



a bull cf the smallest size of his kind, compact and snug in 

 proportion, should be selected, and the larger thus gradually 

 engrafted into the smaller breed, when, in a generation or two, 

 no danger can follow the use of good sized bulls on the heifers 

 of such offsprings from the smaller dams. 



In thorough breeding, the bull should always show his own 

 masculine character, energy, and vigor no cow look about him. 

 The cow should possess the softer and delicate points of her sex 

 in their fullest development, and no masculine features should 

 give her anything of a steer-like appearance. Sexuality, in their 

 highest qualities, should be stamped in every feature, on both 

 sides. 



It sometimes occurs that two certain animals bull and cow, 

 both of excellent quality do not breed well together. The 

 good qualities of neither of them descend to their progeny, the 

 form and features of such progeny running back into some 

 unknown inferior characteristics of the ancestry of one or both 

 the parents. This cannot be accounted for, only in the occasional 

 uncertainties of nature in transmitting the character of parents 

 directly to their offspring. When such uncertainty is ascer- 

 tained to be the habit of the cow and bull so breeding, further 

 intercourse between them should cease, and the cow coupled 

 with a different bull. On the contrary, when a certain bull and 

 cow do breed successfully together, producing really good stock, 

 they should continue to be bred together, unless a bull of 

 altogether superior points and pedigree can be found. "We 

 know no necessity for changing the bull when the cow breeds 

 well to him, unless the new bull be a great deal better than the 

 one she has previously bred to. Changing, merely for the sake 

 of change, is of no benefit. It is mischievously introducing a 

 multiplicity of crosses into one's herd, and thus scattering their 

 blood into uncertainties, and wide variety of offspring, when 

 fixed excellencies might be perpetuated to more advantage. 



