268 AGRICULTURE FOR COMMON SCHOOLS 



and sire are free from mixture with other breeds. For exam- 

 ple, a Shorthorn calf is pure-bred if its dam and sire were 

 both pure Shorthorns, that is, had no Angus or Hereford or 

 Red Polled blood, or the blood of any other breed, in them. 

 The terms full blood and thoroughbred are not good terms 

 to use when speaking of animals of pure breeding. An ani- 

 mal is called a grade when only one of its parents has been 

 pure-bred. When both dam and sire are of mixed breeding 

 the offspring is a scrub or native. When two animals of pure 

 blood but of different breed are bred together the offspring 

 is a cross. 



The choice of a sire is more important than the choice of a 

 dam, because he is used for mating to all the females of the 

 herd. It is a common saying that the sire is half of the herd. 

 This is true because each offspring is influenced in half or 

 more of its qualities by the characteristics of the sire. When 

 a breeder uses a pure-bred male with females of impure breed- 

 ing, with the purpose of improving his stock, he is said to be 

 grading up his herd. If a pure-bred male is used again with 

 the females of this offspring, the improvement will be further 

 increased in the second lot of offspring, and the grades be- 

 come more nearly pure-bred. If a scrub female is mated to a 

 pure-bred male the offspring is a half blood. If this half 

 blood be a female and be mated to a pure-bred male the off- 

 spring will be a three-quarter blood, for the offspring will de- 

 rive one half of its quality from the male, which is pure, and 

 the other half will come from the female, one-half of which 

 is pure; that is, there is one-fourth of pure blood derived 

 from the dam. One-fourth and one-half are three-quarters, 

 hence the offspring from the half-blood female and the pure- 

 blood male is three-quarters pure. A third such cross will 



