DIVISION FOURTEENTH. 



BREEDING LIVE-STOCK. 



ON BREEDING GENERALLY. 



It is hardly necessary for the purposes of this work to enter 

 iuo statistics, or to resort to elaborate argument to prove the para- 

 mount necessity of the best attainable breeding to the most success- 

 ful results. Of the general advantage of breeding up, in every 

 branch of live-stock, every intelligent farmer is already convinced. 

 What we here aim at is rather to furnish him with such informa- 

 tion as will prove of value, and aid in the proper direction of his 

 efforts at improvement of stock and the consequent increase of his 

 profits, enabling him to benefit by the experience of others, instead 

 of having to make costly experiments for himself. In regard to 

 feeding, which is of correlative importance with breeding, and in- 

 separably connected with its favorable prosecution, it need only be 

 said that it so intimately concerns the whole economy of stock-rais- 

 ing, and so vitally affects the degree of profit to be obtained, that 

 no excuse need be offered for putting the reader in possession of the 

 knowledge which, intelligently and systematically applied, will 

 enable him with certainty to reach the largest possible returns for the 

 least possible outlay. In the experiments of scientific breeding, it 

 lias been definitely established that not only does "like produce 

 like," and that it pays to " breed from the best," but the transmis- 

 sion of qualities from parent to offspring may be so regulated that 

 we can accurately govern the development of certain peculiarities 

 and characteristics which constitute the special value of certain ani- 

 mals or classes of animals designed for specific purposes. The 

 development of the art of modern /breeding has been rounded mainly 

 upon the experience of leading breeders, and the result of experi- 

 mental efforts. It has also resulted in the establishment of con- 

 sistent principles of general application, which are found to be fully 

 warranted and endorsed by the science of physiology. In other 

 words, the results attained in breeding are but the illustration of 

 natural laws. Experience has added to experience, till it has been 

 proved by success, when it has invariably been found to harmonize 

 with the physiological law, and to have met with failure only in so 

 far as it diverged therefrom. The whole philosophy of breeding lies 



in the survival of the fittest. Wherever the weaker organism is 



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