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EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNALS. 



PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



BY SANFORD HOWARD. 



We have been several times requested to say something in re- 

 gard to w^hat is called " in-and-in " breeding. We are by no 

 means confident, however, that any remarks of ours can throw 

 light on the subject; though often discussed, it is still involved in 

 intricacy. In endeavoring to understand it, the first point to be 

 settled, is the precise meaning of the term " in-and-in " breeding. 

 It seems to be understood variously — as some suppose it to apply 

 to animals of any degree of relationship — others apply it to 

 breeding from the same family, without particularly defining the 

 affinity of blood which animals bred together should possess to 

 justify the use of the term. Thus they regard the produce of 

 father and daughter, or mother and son, as animals bred in-and- 

 in ; using the same term in this case as they would do in reference 

 to the produce of brother and sister. But a strict definition is 

 evidently necessary, otherwise the use of the term is wholly ran- 

 dom, and its signification so uncertain, that it conveys only a 

 vague idea. 



What, then, is in-and-in breeding ? Sir John S. Sebright, in 

 a letter on the "Art of Improving the Breeds of Domestic Ani- 

 mals," published some years since by the British Board of Agri- 

 culture, considers the term to signify breeding from animals of 

 precisely the same blood. This is an intelligible, and we believe 

 correct definition. It has also been assented to, and its adoption 

 advocated with force, by John Hare Powell, Esq., a citizen of 

 our own country, who has in times past been eminently distin- 

 guished as a breeder of stock. 



Upon the basis of this definition it follows that no course of 

 breeding can be strictly in-and-in, except that which results from 

 coupling animals of exactly the same blood, and this, probably, 

 can rarely happen but by an union of "brother and sister, or of 

 animals which were originally derived from such an union. Where 

 the original male and female were of different families, it is ob- 

 vious that the offspring does not possess the same blood of either 

 of the parents, but has just half the blood of each. The produce 

 of this offspring and either of the parents, would be three-fourths 



