82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



have an idea that the race qualities are very dominant and 

 powerful. Take the Irish race, for instance, and the Jews; 

 take the Anglo-Saxon; and we find the distinctive qualities 

 are handed down not only from one generation to another 

 but one century to another. We frequently find that animals 

 will take back. For instance, I have Holsteins, and once in 

 a while we will have a pure-blooded red-and-white calf. Win- 

 is that ? It is because the ancestors of those cattle were raised 

 in Holland, and they take back, and take on the distinctive 

 color of those animals of perhaps one hundred or two hundred 

 years ago. It seems to me the question of race inheritance 

 does cut some figure in breeding. 



I think the professor in his talk about the prepotency of 

 the sire and dam has illustrated it very easily on the black- 

 board, but is it always so easily done ? My experience is that 

 the old cow is about as important in raising a calf as the sire 

 is. I never have known of having a good calf that made a 

 good cow unless she was out of a good dam. 



Professor Shaw. Pardon me for speaking here, but I wish 

 to make it plain. You speak about the dam having a great 

 influence on the progeny, as well as the sire, — that old cow 

 of good quality ; but you don't get aside from the fact that 

 she inherited those good qualities for a good long time. 



Mr. Potter. Most of the great men in history inherited 

 their greatness from the mother as much as from the father ; 

 and I think that is true with cows, — that, if a cow has good 

 qualities and is strong, she may be more prepotent than the 

 sire. It doesn't always follow that because an animal is pure 

 blooded he is prepotent or remarkably good. There is such a 

 thing as a pure-blooded scrub animal, and if you have one 

 of those, and mate it with a dam that is a good producing 

 animal, you are just as likely to eliminate on one side as the 

 other. You are liable to be mistaken when you say you can 

 breed out all the qualities of the scrub in three or four gen- 

 erations. 



Professor Shaw. I will just give an instance, if you will 

 pardon me, from my own experience, — not with cattle, but 

 with sheep. The principle is the same, although the time 

 required may not be quite the same. I went to the stock 



