BREEDS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 435 



Important Facts for Farmers. In the &quot;breeding and care of domestic animals, the 

 farmer should remember that it is not alone in the breed as such that success lies, but in both 

 breeding by careful selection always aiming to maintain and improve the desirable charac 

 teristics and in generous feeding, kind treatment, and good care generally. A half-starved 

 animal, unsheltered from the storm and obliged to shift, for himself, will not be likely to 

 maintain and perpetuate the valuable qualities he may originally have possessed, no matter 

 how choice the breed, or to how great an extent the fine points of that respective breed may 

 have been represented by him. Bad management would soon degenerate the best breed that 

 has ever been established. We must not only Ireed well, but we must feed, shelter, and care 

 for generally in a manner suited to the maintaining and perpetuating of the good qualities 

 of the breed. 



Dr. A. S. Heath, President of the Farmer s Club of the American Institute, New York 

 city, has embodied some of the first principles to be observed in the breeding and care of 

 animals, in a recent address before that Club, from which we take a few extracts, as follows: 



&quot; The structures of animals are specially adapted to their demands and natures, and vice 

 versa. A special aptitude to fatten is incompatible with ample milk production in the race of 

 bovines; and excessive weight of body and shortness of the limbs in the horse or hog is not 

 suggestive of fleetness. Variation is observed in the readiness of animals to adapt them 

 selves to new conditions, and the changes it produces in them, and especially by hereditary 

 transmission to their offspring. Cold, exposure, and neglect produce degeneration, while care, 

 shelter, and liberal feeding improve existing animals and their expectant offspring. These 

 good results may also be freely transmitted to the progeny. Climate modifies both animals 

 and plants. In tropical climates, with rich soil, many of our small grasses attain a gigantic 

 growth; and in great altitudes, with poor soil, both plants and animals are dwarfed. 



By judicious breeding, care, kindness, and liberal feeding, all the animals and their 

 products become better. Milk is richer, meat is finer, beef and mutton are more tender and 

 juicy, the very soil becomes fat, and the tiller grows richer and richer. Generosity to man, 

 beast, and soil is profitable. Breeding animals must be healthy, free from defects of form, 

 free from defects of constitution, free from predisposition to disease or weakness, free from 

 bad temper or habits, must have sound digestive organs, and they must be capable of promptly 

 and perfectly assimilating food. The breeder must intimately know the capabilities and char 

 acteristics of his breeding animals, so as to be able to adapt them to rear young which shall 

 answer his preconceived wants. He must know that, all other things being equal, both 

 parents equally exert the same amount of influence upon the progeny. This presupposes the 

 equal health, vigor, and stamina of both parents. Both should therefore be as pure-blooded 

 and perfect as possible. 



Because it has been recommended that the male animal should be most highly bred, 

 some have attributed to him the greater potential share in the procreation. This is only true 

 because he is the parent of many annually, while the female is the parent of one, or of only 

 a few during the same time. 



Though food, climate, soil, altitude, exposure, shelter, care, kindness, and other operating 

 circumstances may all produce great changes, yet, all operating at the same time, and for a 

 long time on the animal and its progeny, cannot change the species. By selection we, in 

 time, breed small-boned animals into large-boned ones; long-legged ones into short-legged 

 ones; we can breed horned into hornless, and light-bodied ones into heavy -bodied animals. 

 In a word, by selection the breeder can make the black white, the white black, the fruitful 

 barren, the deformed straight, the perfect imperfect, the imperfect perfect ; he can breed to a 

 feather; he can produce a tendency to meat, to milk, to butter, to cheese, to capacity for labor, 

 for speed, for endurance, or to serve almost any reasonable desire, demand, or fancy. By 

 breeding from carefully-selected parents, the breeder can rapidly increase his flocks and herds, 



