7 6 PEDIGREE BREEDING 



The indefiniteness and inaccuracy of knowledge of present-day 

 breeders and exhibitors give no clue as to whether the early 

 improvers had good reason for their insistence upon such 

 detail, or whether the existence of such points was at first 

 merely accidental. 



There seems, however, to be some hope that the scientific 

 work of the present day will throw light on such points. The 

 discovery, for instance, of certain laws relating to inheritance 

 by Mendel (1822-1884) gives great promise of enlightenment. 

 Mendel's successors have discovered that certain characters 

 are associated with others, which may lie dormant, or inactive, 

 or hidden in a living body, until the union of two parents, each 

 carrying the component factors, causes them to "couple" and 

 come into full view. The existence of these signs of hidden 

 qualities, or factors, carried, but not displayed, by creatures 

 themselves, but capable of being transmitted to offspring in 

 an active form, seems a reasonable explanation of the great stress 

 laid on points that may appear, at first sight, to be purely 

 fanciful. For instance, I have noticed that the dark or "smutty " 

 colour of the nose often seems to be associated with an un- 

 desirable texture of coat. But no " Zootecknicien" (to use a 

 French word in the absence of an English one) has at present 

 sufficient knowledge about the foundation of such points. 

 When Professor Biffen began his successful career as a plant- 

 breeder he had, as a botanist, a full acquaintance with the 

 structure, and many of the functions, of the body of the wheat- 

 organism, and he was able to obtain information of paramount 

 importance about the composition of grain from the chemist 

 and physicist. If the results of scientific investigation into the 

 breeding of farm-stock are to bear full fruit, the "Zootech- 

 nicien" must remedy his ignorance which at present must be 

 admitted to be abysmal. He must seek the assistance of the 

 physiologist, the anatomist, the zoologist, and engraft their 

 teaching on to the empirical knowledge of the breeder, feeder, 

 and butcher. Without a fundamental examination and study 

 of the structures and functions which go to build up a useful 

 type of ox, it is hopeless to try to do more than has been done 

 by the wonderfully successful " rule-of- thumb " practitioner in 



