596 GENETICS IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE 



data must be handled intelligently. In this connection the need of 

 additional comparative tables like Table LXVII for other characters and 

 other classes of livestock should be mentioned. They are not difficult 

 to obtain and undoubtedly they will be available some day 



Pedigrees. The pedigree of an animal is simply a record of its 

 ancestry, and accordingly the ideal system of recording pedigrees is 

 that system which gives proper emphasis to each animal in the pedigree. 

 The one-time fashionable practice of tracing pedigrees back through 

 five or six or even more generations to some illustrious sire or dam 

 cannot, therefore, be too strongly condemned, for it over emphasizes 

 remote ancestors in certain lines and tends to underrate the importance 

 of a possibility of inferiority in nearer ancestors. As a test of purity 

 of blood, the Arabians require that their horses trace through long lines 

 of descent to the five mares of Al Khamseh; there is, however, no justi- 

 fication for this practice in modern breeding operations. 



The pedigrees of pure-bred breeding stock are recorded in herd 

 books. For such animals it is only necessary to consult the herd books 

 in order to trace out their ancestry. However, it is usually more con- 

 venient, since the pedigree must be traced through several volumes of 

 the herd-book, to record it in extended form in the herd record. This 

 is not a difficult task; it need be done only once for every animal, and 

 the task is still further lightened by the fact that the individuals of any 

 established herd will have so many common ancestors that they will 

 duplicate one another's pedigrees to a great extent. It is, however, 

 necessary to say a word regarding the method of recording such pedigrees. 

 The following pedigree of Roan Gauntlet, a famous old Cruickshank 

 Shorthorn sire, taken directly from Volume XXII of the "American 

 Shorthorn Herd-book," illustrates a method of recording pedigrees which 

 should not be followed by breeders: 



Roan Gauntlet 45,276 (35,284). Roan, calved May 19, 1873, bred by A. Cruick- 

 shank, owned by Mr. Rennie, got by Royal Duke of Gloster (29,864), out of Princess 

 Royal by Champion of England (17,526) Carmine by The Czar (20,947) Cressida 

 by John Bull (11,618) Clipper by Billy (3151) by Dandy (6918) by Tiptop 

 (7633) bred by Mr. Mason. 



The reason why this method should not be followed may be seen 

 very easily in Fig. 232, which illustrates a proper way of recording a 

 pedigree. Here the bold-faced type indicates those animals which were 

 included in the pedigree as given in the herd-book. Of the sixty-two 

 ancestors of Roan Gauntlet in five generations only nine are included in 

 the herd book record. Further the record is defective in that it fails to 

 give any evidence of the type of breeding which was employed in pro- 

 ducing Roan Gauntlet. The way this bull traces back to the great 



