206 AMERICAN CATTLE. 



dinary influence*, and the axiom should never be neglected by 

 the breeder. To follow its teachings, generally, is the road 

 either to success or ruin. Good animals, as a rule, will produce 

 their kind; bad ones will produce theirs. Our remarks regard- 

 ing barrenness and its tendencies, as well as the recovery into 

 full fruitfulness, might be illustrated, had we the space, by several 

 well authenticated examples, now unnecessary, and perhaps 

 invidious to mention. 



To follow up the "in-and-in" theory: Suppose, after breeding 

 thus closely for a series of years, some failing in vigor or quality 

 is detected in the young stock; should further interbreeding be 

 continued? No. What then? There always will be, if your 

 stock be of blood having any currency at all, a distantly removed 

 family of the kind, possessing mainly, or fully, the identical 

 blood of your own herd, in a locality not far distant, to which, if 

 their good qualities be still retained, a resort may at once be 

 made to reinvigorate your stock, and a fresh cross be obtained. 

 We may be here met with the objection, that if the same blood 

 be resorted to, the cross will not be a fresh one, and the like ill 

 results follow, as with your own previous in-and-in breeding. 

 Such fact, by no means, need follow. 



Suppose that an importation of a number of cattle of a closely 

 bred family bulls and cows be made into New York, Boston, 

 or Philadelphia. A part of them are taken into New England, 

 another part into Pennsylvania, or Western New York, and 

 another into Kentucky, Ohio, or a farther Western State, whoro 

 the soils are quite unlike, and the climates somewhat different 

 from each other. These animals, thus widely separated, will 

 soon acquire somewhat different characteristics from each other 

 family of the same original stock, although all may be kept and 

 bred with equal care. The water they drink, the soil on which 

 they graze, the food they eat, the climate they inhabit, will work 

 somewhat of a change in their constitutions and habits, and one 



