114 AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND THE FARMER 



CHAPTER VII. 



ANIMAL BREEDING. 



Essentially, the principles underlying the study of heredity 

 apply to both animals and plants ; but whereas plants are often 

 self-fertilised, and supply easy material for investigating the 

 phenomena of heredity, animals are bi-sexual, and breeding 

 experiments with animals are more complicated and much more 

 expensive. The scientific breeding of plants has in consequence 

 attained a much higher degree of perfection than in the case of 

 animals. The plant-breeder is now engaged all over the world 

 in improving existing races of plants and introducing new types 

 to meet special needs, and he is alread3' in possession of sufficient 

 information regarding the principles of heredity in plants to 

 enable him to go about his work with some measure of assurance 

 that he will produce results ; he has thus become one of the most 

 powerful influences we possess in connection with the improve- 

 ment of our food supply. The breeding of animals, on the 

 other hand, cannot be said to have yet got past the stage of 

 investigation of principles, except, perhaps, in the case of small 

 animals such as poultr5^ The commercial stock-breeder, although 

 he has succeeded in producing cattle and sheep of very high 

 and world famous quality, is still limited to the method of trial 

 and error. The excellent results of his work manifested in the 

 show yard are not gained without continual disappointments and 

 failures, which the show yard does not reveal; tljere are many 

 pit-falls which he would avoid but cannot, many things which 

 he would like to do if he knew how. Unfortunately, experi- 

 mental work with large animals such as cattle and sheep is 

 very expensive, and the funds available for research have been 

 too limited to permit of this type of enquiry. An investigation 

 with sheep on a large scale has, however, recently been commenced 

 at the Animal Breeding Research Institute of the University of 

 Edinburgh, and through the courtesy of the Scottish Board of 

 Agriculture we are able to give an account of it later in this 

 chapter. As regards England and Wales, a small annual grant 

 has been provided for some years to enable the Department 

 of Genetics in the Unversity of Cambridge to carry out breeding 

 experiments with poultry and rabbits. These experiments, 

 while they have furnished some results of practical importance 

 to the poultry and rabbit industries, are primarily intended to 

 establish the fundamental principles on which the scientific 



