THE SELECTION OF ANIMALS 37 



To purchase such animals for feeding may not incur 

 great hazard with the animals themselves, because of 

 the short duration of the feeding term. But it does al- 

 ways incur hazard to breeding animals on the same 

 farm unless these are at all times kept from coming in 

 contact with the feeding animals or their surroundings. 

 To purchase swine for feeding in proximity to cholera 

 infected areas, is always hazardous, as an outbreak of the 

 same may not only decimate the swine in the feed lot, 

 but in the breeding pens also. The aim should be to 

 rear the animals for the feed lot to the greatest extent 

 practicable on the farms on which they are finished. The 

 barter carried on in live stock in rural communities is re- 

 sponsible more than anything else for the distribution of live 

 stock diseases. 



Transmission. It is not necessary of course to con- 

 sider transmitting properties when selecting animals for 

 feeding only. In such instances, inheritance may be 

 greatly important, but, since the animals are not to be 

 used in breeding, transmitting properties are of no ac- 

 count. But when the selection pertains to animals to be 

 retained for breeding, then it becomes all important. 



Correct transmission is another name for prepotency, 

 and prepotency means the power to transmit individual 

 and breed properties to the progeny. The guarantees of 

 desirable prepotency are : ( I ) Purity of breeding, for sev- 

 eral generations on the side of both sire and dam: (2) 

 high performance in the individuals of the near ancestry 

 on the side of both sire and dam; (3) line breeding, but 

 not carried to the point of weakened stamina ; and (4) 

 indications of marked individual stamina or bodily vigor. 

 An animal possessed of all these requisites will assuredly 

 be prepotent. But when selecting animals for breeding, 

 it is not only necessary that they shall be prepotent, but 

 it is all important^that they shall be possessed of prepo- 

 tency adapted to the end sought. Prepotency in trans- 

 mitting flesh making properties to the dairy cow rather 



