882 APPENDIX. 



it is the most widely disseminated breed of improved cat- 

 tle the world has ever seen have left behind them mes- 

 sages that^ cannot be too often repeated. Their voices call 

 to you, men of the present day, warning against pitfalls 

 that beset your path. The lights of a century of experience 

 hang all about you if you only have eyes to see. 

 * * * 



There are several very striking lessons brought home to 

 every student of Short-horn records. One of the most 

 important is that in-and-in or line-breeding has its limi- 

 tations beyond which the greatest masters of the art have 

 failed of farther success. Another lesson is that the right 

 use of the principle of blood concentration is the greatest 

 single power the breeder can employ and that judiciously 

 applied it has yielded the great successes of Short-horn 

 history. Is this most potential factor being properly and 

 profitably used at the present time? To this query I feel 

 inclined to return a most emphatic negative. You have 

 marked down and put upon the bargain counter most of 

 the elements to which the principle of in-breeding might 

 now be satisfactorily applied. You are working generally 

 with instruments that have already been steeled to such 

 a fine edge in the furnace of close-breeding that they are 

 in many cases becoming frail and peculiarly liable to mis- 

 haps. There are valuable ores lying all around you wait- 

 ing for the touch of the refining flame that may call them 

 into popularity. You talk much of Booth, of Bates, .of 

 Cruickshank and the elder Renick and at the same time 

 make little effort to follow their practices. They set to 

 work to build their fame by the use of the best material 

 afforded by the entire breed; throwing in the cement of 

 in-breeding after they had attained a certain point. Their 

 work was original and creative. They were constructors, 

 builders not servile imitators. Why do you limit your 

 efforts so largely to experiments upon the refractory e'e-* 

 ments of the in-bred strains of other days? 



The late Mr. Amos Cruickshank assured me personally 

 in 1892 that his herd had been in want of re-invigoration 

 for some years prior to its sale to the Messrs. Nelson in 



