412 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



BREEDS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



THE important relation that good farm stock holds to advanced agriculture is becoming 

 daily more clearly recognized and appreciated by farmers generally; but how to pro 

 duce animals that shall possess the desirable characteristics and qualities is not com 

 monly understood, or demonstrated in practical results. To search out the rules which govern 

 the results desired to be obtained, and to apply them in systematic practice, has been the work of 

 eminent breeders of the past and present age, who have devoted much time, labor, and 

 attention in determining these laws and applying them, until breeding has become an art, 

 which has been carried to such a state of perfection that the breeder might almost be said 

 to possess the creative art, the power to determine beforehand the type of animal that will 

 be produced ; for instance, we have, the horse intended for speed, for draft, for the saddle, 

 and for the carriage; cattle designed for beef exclusively, or for beef and dairy products 

 combined; the cow designed especially for milk production and cheese, and those designed 

 particularly for the production of butter; sheep that will produce the long combing wool, 

 that of a medium staple, and a short staple ; sheep, the principal characteristic of which is 

 wool production, or those characterized for the production of wool and mutton combined ; 

 swine that will yield a superabundance of fat, or those that- will furnish the best quality of 

 lean pork, suited for hams and bacon ; poultry, the chief excellence of which is egg produc 

 tion, or in furnishing the best quality of table fowl; dogs that will render the farmer and 

 herder most valuable service in the care of sheep and cattle, and those designed more 

 particularly for assisting the sportsman, etc., all of which are proofs of the skill of the 

 herder in establishing breeds for special purposes, by making use of the material at hand, in 

 a judicious selection and combination based upon a knowledge of hereditary law, or what 

 might more properly be termed the law of nature. Breeding in agriculture, is therefore 

 the art of so selecting and coupling animals as to produce those best fitted for the purpose 

 for which they are intended, and this art seems to apply uniformly to the breeding of all 

 domestic animals. 



It is only within the last two hundred years that careful and systematic breeding has 

 been practiced in the rearing of cattle, while during the last fifty years more has been accom 

 plished in the improvement of farm animals by judicious breeding than during all the time 

 preceding in the history of agriculture. But little had been accomplished in a systematic 

 way towards the improvement of British cattle until Bakewell undertook the improvement of 

 the Long Horns. Subsequent to this the Collings improved the Durhams, sometimes called 

 the Teeswaters, and hence we have th^ noted Short Horns of to-day, while later breeders 

 developed the Devons, Herefords, etc. The fact is fully established in the historic records of 

 the past that wherever agriculture has attained any advancement with a people, the domestic 

 animals have always improved accordingly. 



Nature works according to fixed rules, which are commonly termed natural laws. There 

 may be certain exceptions to these rules, since difference in conditions will tend to difference 

 in results; yet still there will be seen through all, a connected chain of evidence, showing the 

 existence of well established laws. 



How Breeds are Formed. The term breeds is usually applied to the varieties of 

 domestic animals. A breed is consequently a variety, and implies the existence of a group 

 of individuals distinguished from others of their congeners by the possession of certain 

 peculiar characteristics which are transmitted to their offspring; and it is this transmission of 

 peculiarities which is the essential characteristic of a breed. The art of breeding may prop 

 erly be said to consist in changing the conditions of life, and of regulating the reproduction 



