PEDIGREE BREEDING 77 



Great Britain, whose chief weapon in his great contest with 

 nature has been his wonderful, intuitive judgment guided by 

 experience. On the other hand, the practising farmer must 

 be convinced that his forebears obtained results despite, and 

 not because of, the absence of scientific assistance. 



To return to the work of the early Shorthorn improvers, 

 there was no point of detail in their stock on which they seem 

 to have set more value than that known as "touch." This word 

 covers a great deal in connexion with the hide, the tissues lying 

 under it, and the coat covering it. The foundation stock are 

 reputed to have had thin and hard skins, inelastic and tightly 

 stretched over a mass of tissue which had no feeling of springi- 

 ness when examined by hand. The Collings brothers made a 

 special point of securing animals having a totally different 

 " touch." The frames of the animals they sold or let at what were 

 then fabulous prices were covered with hides moderately thick, 

 very ample, and very elastic. The flesh under the frame was 

 required to be firm yet resilient, and nowhere to adhere closely 

 to the animal's frame. Under pressure from the fingers the hide 

 had to run freely and pleasantly over the whole frame, more 

 especially over those parts where the covering between it and 

 the bone was slightest. Failure in any of these "points" dis- 

 qualified the animal for use as a sire in the herd. 



So much for the hide itself. Now as to the hair. The 

 authorities insisted that this should be very abundant and 

 very soft, and they seem to have preferred it to be specially 

 curly all over and to show a fine fringe on the ears, and a silky 

 tassel at the end of the tail. The type of hair required is 

 often described as "mossy," the very opposite of being harsh, 

 or wire-like, to the touch. This matter of quality of hair seems 

 to have excited the special ridicule of "systematic" workers, 

 and I have myself known scientific authorities raise a laugh at 

 the expense of the breeder who laid stress upon, and would 

 pay high prices for, breeding animals with mossy coats. Yet 

 some recent work on the effect of skin-temperatures 1 by Professor 



1 Professor Wood read a paper before the British Association at Sydney 

 in August, 1914, on this subject. The work unfortunately has had to be 

 discontinued on account of the war. 



