94 FEEDING FARM ANIMALS 



portion of their diet. Modifications in this direction, how- 

 ever, are quite slow unless aided by selection and facilitated 

 by the influence of hand milking. 



Habit in digestion also modifies the breeding season. 

 Animals well and suitably fed, breed more freely than those 

 not fed so well. Through the influence of food alone, the 

 breeding season may be greatly modified if not indeed 

 entirely changed. But such modification is greatly influ- 

 enced by selection as is the case with all modification. The 

 domestic cow as now kept breeds at all seasons. Her 

 sister running wild on the plains breeds only when the 

 spring grasses are suitable and abundant. They then pro- 

 vide ample food to enable her to nourish her young. The 

 relation, therefore, between food and management and mod- 

 ification of habit in digestion is abundantly clear. 



Modifications not equally easy. The modifications in 

 habit in digestion which are possible are by no means equally 

 easy. To illustrate : It does not take long to transform the 

 wool growing sheep into one that produces mutton that 

 may be considered high class. But it takes a long time to 

 make equally pronounced changes in the character of wool, 

 and marked modification in the constituents of milk call for 

 long generations, if not indeed centuries, to make them in 

 a marked degree. 



Modifications in meat production may be quickly made. 

 The author purchased ewes from the range very common 

 in character. They were mated with a high-class South- 

 down ram. The female progeny of the next generation and 

 also of the next were similarly mated. The lambs of the 

 third generation were then exhibited at the International 

 Fat Stock show at Chicago in 1901 and won first honors, 

 both alive and dead, competing against the world. The 

 range females originally purchased were possessed of very 

 indifferent mutton form and they were of diverse blood 

 elements, Merino characteristics being in the ascendant. 



Modification in the character ol wool is made much 

 more slowly, notwithstanding that considerable modification 



