POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE :J j ; Tpl 



or of a group of meat-salesmen or butchers. There are many 

 points, some of them perhaps very subtle, which must be worked 

 out before it is possible for the man of science systematically to 

 superimpose one good quality upon another. 



In this connexion there is a further subject to be studied: 

 namely, to determine which features of the living animal denote 

 the characters we require. The plant-breeder can retain a large 

 number of seeds and easily study their properties through the 

 medium of the plants they produce after a short period of 

 growth. With calves the matter is very much more difficult 

 and the expense almost prohibitive. Of a hundred bull-calves 

 dropped no more than 5 per cent, are usually retained for 

 breeding purposes. To keep the whole hundred and investigate 

 their qualities as progenitors would be altogether too cumber- 

 some and would require too great an outlay to allow of much 

 hope of return. But if the touch, the eye, the weighbridge, or 

 measurement, or all these combined could tell us definitely a 

 few days after birth that a calf was the right sort to be kept as 

 a sire, systematic breeding would be brought within the range 

 of possibility. Our present knowledge, great as it undoubtedly 

 is, is not sufficient to form a basis for the accurate work which 

 science demands. 



Many such problems could be quoted, for every one who has 

 given serious thought to the subject has some particular point 

 in mind as a subject of research which should lead to improve- 

 ment in the economic value even of animals now thought to be 

 good. The great object to be attained, however, is the elimina- 

 tion of all unprofitable animals, and the collection and use of 

 evidence to demonstrate the folly of breeding and keeping a 

 large proportion of the animals we now unfortunately possess. 

 Education must in the future carry conviction that the fully- 

 developed cow, yielding no more than 500 gallons of milk per 

 annum and at the same time being but an inferior animal for the 

 shambles, is unworthy of the husbandry of a civilized nation. A 

 great effort will be needed to teach a large proportion of our 

 farmers, long engaged in rearing cattle of this class, that their only 

 source of profit (and that unsatisfactory) has been robbery from 

 the land. The stock-breeding industry deserves a good reward. 



