114 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 



put them to breeding at two, but take off their lambs and 

 give them to foster-mothers. If the young ewe is carefully 

 dried off her milk, she will experience no injury and no loss 

 of growth. The increase of growth during pregnancy 

 will make up for the slight falling off after yeaning. 

 The English breeds both mature and decline considerably 

 earlier in life. 



A theory of considerable importance to the breeder, if 

 true, has recently been started, viz., that the male which first 

 impregnates a female, continues to exert an influence on 

 some of the qualities of her subsequent offspring, or at least 

 is liable to do so. I have not, in my own expeiience, 

 observed any proofs of this.* 



It has been a prevailing opinion among American breeders 

 that it is much better to breed between a small male and 

 large female, than in the contrary direction. The reason 

 assigned by Mr. Cline, of England, who first, I think, 

 publicly advanced this view, was that the fetus begotten 

 by the larger male has not room to expand and develop 

 itself properly in the womb of the small female ; that it does 

 not obtain sufficient nutrition from stores intended for a 

 smaller fetus; and that, in consequence of these things, it 

 can not obtain its normal size and proportions anterior 

 to birth : secondly, that it is liable on account of its extra 

 size to cause difficulty, if not danger to its dam in yeaning ; 

 and finally, that the opposite course, by giving the fetus 

 unusual room and extra nutriment, tends to its most perfect 

 development. This is probably true as between different 

 breeds, where the disparity in size is extreme, as, for 

 instance, between the Saxon Merino ewe and the Cots wold 

 ram. I would not expect a greatly overgrown ram to get 

 as good stock as a more moderate sized one, even on ewes 

 of the same breed, but it would be quite as much for 

 another reason as for any of the preceding ones, viz., that 

 these overgrown animals never possess the highest attainable 

 amount of vigor and general excellence themselves, and are 

 not therefore fitted for sires, irrespective of relative size. 

 But the rule should not be extended to the exclusion of 

 large rams of the breed, if good in other particulars. Nature 

 adapts herself unexpectedly to circumstances, in the face of 

 all theories. Constant and recent experiments, in England, 



* Those who wish to see the facts and arguments which are set forth to support 

 this theory will find them in Mr. S. L. Goodale's interesting work on the Principles of 

 Breeding, published in 1861. 



