PookIL* improving the breed of animals. 301 



scanty, the animals are small, being proportioned to the quantity of food which they were 

 able to procure. Of these contrasts, the sheep of Lincolnshire and of Wales are examples. 

 The sheep of Lincolnshire would starve on the mountains of Wales. 



2010. Crossing the breed of animals may he attended with bad effects in various ways ; 

 and that even when adopted in the beginning on a good principle ; for instance, suppose 

 some larger ewes than those of the native breed were taken to the mountains of Wales, 

 and put to the rams of that country, if these foreign ewes were fed in proportion to their 

 size, their lambs would be of an improved form, and larger in size than the native ani- 

 mals ; but the males produced by this cross, though of a good form, would be dispro- 

 portionate in size to the native ewes ; and, therefore, if permitted to mix with them, 

 would be productive of a starveling, ill-formed progeny. Thus a cross, which, at first 

 was an improvement, would, by giving occasion to a contrary cross, ultimately prejudice 

 the breed. The general mistake in crossing has arisen from an attempt to increase the 

 size of a native race of animals ; being a fruitless effort to counteract the laws of nature, 



2011. The Arabian horses are, in general, the most perfect in the world ; which pro- 

 bably has arisen from great care in selection, and also from being unmixed with any 

 variety of the same species ; the males, therefore, have never been disproportioned in 

 size to the females. 



2012. The native horses of India are small, but well proportioned, and good of their 

 kind. With the intention of increasing their size, the India company have adopted a 

 plan of sending large stallions to India. If these stallions should be extensively used, 

 a disproportioned race must be the result, and a valuable breed of horses may be 

 irretrievably spoiled. 



2013. From theory , from practice, and from extensive observation, the last more to be 

 depended on than either, '* it is reasonable," Cline continues, " to form this conclusion: 

 it is wrong to enlarge a native breed of animals, for in proportion to their increase of 

 size, they become worse in form, less hardy, and more liable to disease." {Communica- 

 tions to the B. of Ag. vol-, iv. p. 446.) 



2014. The above opinions may be considered as supported by the most eminent prac- 

 tical breeders, as Bakewell, CuUey, Somerville, Parry, and others, and by most 

 theorists, as Coventry, Darwin, Hunt, Young, &c. T. A. Knight writes in the Com- 

 munications to the Board of Agriculturein favor of cross breeding, as do Pitt and others in 

 the County Surveys, but mostly from very limited experience. Sir J. S. Sebright, in a 

 letter addressed to Sir Joseph Banks, on improving the breed of domestic animals, 1809, 

 has taken the opposite side of the question, but the meaning he attaches to the term 

 breeding in-and-in is so limited, as to render it a very different sort of breeding fromi 

 that practised by Messrs. Bakewell and Culley, which has been generally so named and 

 recommended by Cline and others, who favor, rather than otherwise, the in-and-in sys- 

 tem. He says, " Magnell's fox-hounds are quoted as an instance of the success of 

 breeding in-and in ; but upon speaking to that gentleman upon the subject, I found that 

 he did not attach the meaning that I do, to the term in-and-in. He said that he fre- 

 quently bred from the father and the daughter, and the mother and the son. This is 

 not what I consider -as breeding in-and-in ; for the daughter is only half of the same 

 blood as the father, and will probably partake, in a great degree, of' the properties of 

 the mother. Magnell sometimes bred from brother and sister ; this is certainly what 

 may be called a little close : but should they both be very good, and, particularly, should 

 the same defects not predominate in both, but the perfections of the one promise to 

 correct in the produce the imperfections of the other, I do not think it objectionable : 

 much farther than this the system of breeding from the same family, cannot, in my 

 opinion, be pursued with safety." (p. 10.) John Hunt, surgeon at Loughborough, a 

 friend of Bakewell and Darwin, in a reply to Sir J. S. Sebright's pamphlet, entitled 

 Agricultural Memoirs, ^c. 1812, justly observes, that as Sir John has given no defini- 

 tion of the term in-and-in, from what may be gathered from the above extract he seems 

 to have been as near as possible of the same mind as Bakewell, whose practice it is on 



. all sides allowed, was " to put together those animals which were most perfect in shape 

 without regard to affinity in blood, " This, in fact, is the general practice in all the best 

 breeding districts, and especially in Leicestershire and Northumberland. 



2015. George Culley, a Northumberland farmer of great practice in breeding and feeding, in hig 

 Observations on Live Stock, not only concurs in this principle as far as respects quadrupeds, but con- 

 siders it to hold good in the feathered tribe, and, in short, in animals of every kind. His conclusion is, 

 " That of all animals, of whatever kind, those which have the smallest, cleanest, finest bones, are in 

 general the best proportioned, and covered with the best and finest grained meat." " I believe," he adds, 

 " they are also the nardiest, healthiest, and most inclinable to feed ; able to bear the most fatigue while 

 living, and worth the most per lb. when dead." {Observations, 8(c. 222.) 



2016. Cross breeding, under judicious management, might probably be often employed 

 to correct the faults of particular breeds, or to impart to them new qualities. " Were 

 I," says Sir J. S. Sebright, ** to define what is called the art of breeding, I should say, 

 that it consisted in the selection of males and females, intended to breed together, in 

 reference to each other's perits and defects. It is not always by putting the best male 



