PEDIGREES AND THEIR VALUE 



39 



stock originated. If an animal is not pure-bred, it may 

 combine in its pedigree widely differing blood lines that are 

 more or less out of harmony with one another. 



A cross-bred animal has a sire of one breed, and a dam 

 of another. As a rule, cross-breeding is very undesirable, 

 and should be carried only one generation, and then for the 

 production of feeding-stock only. Some lines of cross-breed- 

 ing, however, have been popular for many years. In Scot- 

 land what are known as blue-grays, famous for the quality 

 of their beef, are crosses of white Shorthorns with black 

 Galloways or Aberdeen-Angus. Another noted example of 

 crossing breeds in Scotland is the mating of Border Leicester 

 rams on Cheviot ewes, producing remarkably fine mutton. 

 These two crosses are for meat production only, and extend 

 but one generation. 



A grade animal, in the large majority of cases, has a pure- 

 bred sire, but is out of a dam that is not pure-bred. One 

 often hears the expression high grade, which means that the 

 animal referred to is by a pure-bred sire, and out of a dam 

 that contains much pure blood stock. A high grade herd of 

 Herefords would consist of a collection of animals that 

 started with just common or scrub breeding stock, but in 

 which for some generations none but pure-bred males were 

 used as sires. Thus a systematic improvement of the herd 

 would be made. The degree of improvement may be ex- 

 pressed as follows: 



1st generation = Pure sire, scrub dam. f ho offspring 



K blood 



2nd ' 1 A blood dam. 



3rd 



4th 



5th 



6th 



Thus it can be seen that in time a herd may become practi- 

 cally pure-bred, although one will not be able to register this 

 high-grade stock in standard American breed registry asso- 

 ciations. Yet all pedigrees really start from grade ancestry. 



