PEDIGREE BREEDING 75 



original stock failed. He wished to improve the quantity, the 

 quality, and the rate of production of meat among his deep- 

 milking cattle; to found, in other words, a dual-purpose breed, 

 and there is ample evidence that, although no particular care 

 was given to deep-milking qualities, this object was completely 

 attained. But, before developing this theme, it is interesting 

 to consider some other factors. 



While all these "utility" points were being developed, an 

 equally important change was effected in some minor matters. 

 These details are sometimes scornfully spoken of as "fancy 

 points," that is, points of colour, shape and carriage of head, 

 carriage and texture of horn, and even absence of black pig- 

 mentation in both horn and muzzle all points which in them- 

 selves seem utterly worthless and have consequently been 

 ridiculed even by the most intelligent and broad-minded friends 

 of agriculture. Such critics held that the shape of head in no 

 way affected the value of a cow or bull. "What," they asked, 

 "is the value of width between the eyes, of delicate chiselling- 

 away of the bony outline of the profile, of the ' dished-face V 

 of the deep, well-turned jaw with no superfluous skin hiding 

 its conformation and musculature, or of the waxy, flat, cream- 

 coloured horn well placed on the head and showing no black 

 in the tip ? " The answer of the practical man in the past was 

 extremely vague. He would reply that such, points made his 

 animals sell, or that their absence brought the price down, or 

 that Mr So-and-So was, at any rate, of this opinion, and so on. 

 Occasionally he could give a more reasoned answer: he might 

 explain that such and such an imperfection denoted impurity 

 of blood, that it showed that the progenitor, belonging perhaps 

 to a remote generation, had been of another race, possibly of 

 an unimproved breed. But every answer indicated vagueness 

 and looseness of knowledge. One practitioner of repute would 

 declare that experience and observation had taught him to 

 value a particular point in an animal, while others, equally 

 reputable as "practical men," had made no such observation. 



1 This feature, when combined with a fashionable pedigree and other 

 "breed points," added ^1000 or more to the value of the animal about 50 

 years ago ! 



