CONCLUDING REMARKS 611 



they are fitted in their proper places they tend that much to add to the 

 completeness and unity of the whole structure. It is a fortunate breeder 

 who is able to approach his problems from such a point of view. 



The Need of Other Knowledge. Proficiency at any sort of game may 

 be gained only by practising the game. No amount of reading and 

 study of methods of play will suffice to make a good card player or a 

 billiardist; it is required that the player be able to put the principles 

 to effective use if he would achieve any measure of success. It is not 

 far different in the practice of animal breeding. Genetics provides 

 merely the principles of a game, the effective employment of those 

 principles necessitates a thoroughly grounded knowledge of a wide range 

 of matters pertaining to the technique of rearing, training, mating, and 

 what not of the particular type of animal which is being bred. We 

 might say somewhat enigmatically that successful animal breeding 

 requires a knowledge both of principles and principals. He who has 

 studied genetics has only begun the study of the broader subject of 

 animal breeding. Ordinarily it would be a much safer procedure to 

 entrust the future of a carefully built-up herd of pure-bred livestock to 

 the sympathetic care of the herdsman trained in the old school rather 

 than to the most thoroughly trained genetic investigator in the land. 



For after all success in animal breeding depends very largely upon 

 the ability of the breeder to build up in his mind an ideal type; and there 

 is no more reason or assurance that such a type will arise full-formed in 

 the mind of the breeder than that any other good thing may be obtained 

 without effort. Here indeed is a rare opportunity for good sound judg- 

 ment to work toward a definitely appointed end. For the ideal type of 

 the breeder will in a sense be a composite of many types, in determining 

 which the particular force of any one factor must be weighed with con- 

 summate skill. Thus to take a single illustration, that of the ideal 

 type of beef Shorthorn, we may point out some of the types which must 

 be welded so to speak into one. There is first the market type of beef 

 cattle; broad, deep, built upon the plan of the parallelogram, carrying a 

 maximum percentage of high priced cuts, and a minimum percentage 

 of offal. In the second place we may consider the feeder's type of beef 

 cattle. He desires an animal which will lay on flesh rapidly and econom- 

 ically. Consequently he looks for a bright and alert, but not overly 

 active disposition, and a high degree of functional excellence in the 

 digestive system and body in general, such that the animal will consume 

 a maximum amount of food and convert it into flesh of the propei quality. 

 Perhaps as a slight compensatory allowance here the feeder permits a 

 slight increase in volume of digestive and other vital organs with a 

 consequent increase in percentage of offal for the sake of more economical 

 gains. In the third place we must consider the breeders' type of beef 



