166 



CANADIAN FARM YEAR BOOK. 



don individual seledtibn A pedigree 

 is not a crutch on w<hich incompetence 

 can lean; It is a guaranty of Wood 

 lines,-^ field Inside of whioh (breeding 

 operations and selection may with 

 confidence be confined. 



The word "confined" is used zCdvls- 

 edly, for, after line breeding iias been 

 practiced for a few generations, the 

 ancestry becomes a kind of pure ibreed 

 of its own,— a breed within a Ibreed, 

 so to speak,— and any attempt to in- 

 troduce blood from other lines is like- 

 ly to be followed by the pains and 

 penalties of hybridization; for a de- 

 parture from line breeding is a kmd 

 of crossing in a small degree, and so 

 rapidly do blood lines become inten- 

 sified that line■^^^ed animals assume 

 all the attributes of distinct strains, 

 as they in truth are, and they will be 

 likely to behave as such ever after. 



In saying that line-bred animals 

 tend to behave like pure strains, and 

 that their progeny from union with 

 other strains behave like hyfbnds, it 



is not meant that such unions should 

 never be made, or that such behavior 

 is as persistent as writih real crosses. 

 In truth, many lines are so stubborn 

 as never to 'biend with others after- 

 ward (behaving like the most strong- 

 ly established races), but, on the 

 other hand, mosit of them will yield 

 to well-directed and persistent effort; 

 that is to say, a lineJbred herd can be 

 modified, and in time made to assTime 

 the characters of another family, but 

 the process is attended with a struggle 

 and not a few failures. It has been 

 fashionable at times to decry line 

 breeding, but the fadt remains that a 

 few generations of good breeding soon 

 bring the herd and its career to a 

 point where line 'breeding must be 

 practiced or a worse alternative must 

 be accepted, for with well-selected 

 straiiiiS all outbreeding is mixed breea- 



Ing. 



Inbreeding. 



iLine breeding carried to its limits 



involves the breeding together of in- 



Labenoiniere. Champion P eroheron Female Canadia n National, 1915. 



