■IS LIVESTOCK ().\ TlIK FARM 



Ilis attention upon the details that make up his ideal and learn to handle 

 them separately, because the type as such is too complicated for selection 

 and is never accurately reproduced. The type is, therefore, a dream, the 

 separate characters are the realities. 



"This man must also be an accurate critic, unerring in his judgment of 

 his own animals as if they belonged to the veriest stranger. This quality, 

 while not incompatible with the two already mentioned, is so different 

 from either as seldom to be found united in the same individual. Difficult 

 as it is, the breeder must cultivate tliis quality, and while 1 doubt whether 

 the greatest breeders are the best judges of animals, yet every constructive 

 l^reeder nuist be an impartial and fairly competent judge, at least free 

 from prejudice, lest he deceive himself with an inordinate love of his own 

 achievements and rest contented with what others have surpassed. 



"He must needs have a good memory for details, this breeder, because, 

 in spite of records, much must be carried in the mind, and animals long 

 since dead must be compared point by point with living specimens and 

 with each other in order to determine matings and decide whether and 

 where progress is being made. 



" A 'statistician he must surely be. That is io say he nmst step aside 

 from the study of individuals and study the history of detail character- 

 istics, and he must study animals in the mass. In no other way can he 

 ])e satisfied as to whether he is making real progress forward or only 

 multiplying animals that revolve around a center, presenting not a 

 progressive but onl,y a shifting standard. Among cows and speed horses 

 the records are absolute and questions of this character answer them- 

 selves, but in general breeding so many details nuist be carried in the eye 

 that the breeder must submit his mental pictures and his intellectual 

 judgment to the same statistical methods and reasoning tliat lie would 

 apply to columns and tables of figures, dealing with other general ques- 

 tions. 



"For above all, this breeder is to be constructive. No breeder can be 

 accounted great who simply preserves what has been gained Ijefore, 

 difficult as this may be of actual accomplishment. The real breeder is 

 not an imitator. He is an inventor as truly as is a mechanician; a 

 designer as truly as is a great musician, sculptor, or painter, and his 

 theme is something new and better than was ever done before. Not all 

 his attempts will be successful any more than they are in music or paint- 

 ing, but perfection is the ideal, and occasional failure together with much 

 hard work is the penalty we all pay for really constructive results. 

 Breeding of this kind is seldom popular and never spectacular, and that 

 is one of the reasons whj^ it sometimes succeeds, for premature popularity 

 has cut off some of tlie most promising attempts of constructive breeding 

 of all times. 



"He will need persistence to a degree, because the higher his ideal the 

 more difficult of accomplishment; his ideal will advance as he advances. 

 He will fail many times, and will see numerous alluring bypaths that 

 promise rosy traveling and lucrative results. 'Tliis one thing I do' is 

 the motto for the breeder who aspires to be really great. To be sure, 



