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frequently kept for breeding purposes, chiefly because they have 

 fashionable pedigrees, rather than their merits, considered mere- 

 ly as breeding stock. Of course such bulls sell, for the pedi' 

 gree sells them : but however important a pedigree ib — and it is 

 a most important point — still a fashiona'ole pedigree will not 

 make up for decided want of merit in a bull." 



This does not prove that pedigree is not an important point to 

 be taken into consideration \n the selection of breeding stock ; 

 it merely proves that occasionally, and in spite of a long line of 

 good blood, an animal will crop up, which does not posess suffi- 

 cient merit to render it desirable to retain that animal for breed- 

 ing purposes. From this we see that an animal should not only 

 be of good blood, but should have sufficient merit of its own to 

 warrant us in purchasing for breeding purposes. 



Notwithstanding Sinclair's statement that the stock of well 

 bred animals may be relied on, it is not invariably true, as the 

 occasional cropping up of worthless specimens shows. 



As I have said before, a thorough-bred animal is not necessari- 

 ly a well-bred one, so likewise a well-bred animal is not always a 

 meritorious one. 



Sometimes a farmer buys a thorough-bred bull because he hap- 

 pens to be cheap. He may be a "weed," which the breeder was 

 only too glad to dispose of, or he may per chance be a good ani- 

 mal. He is taken home, half starved, allowed to do service not 

 only for the farmer's cows but for all others in the neighborhood. 

 His calves, when they come, are fed just enough to keep them 

 alive and consequently grow up looking very scraggily. The 

 farmer, not seeing the expected improvement, begins to cry 

 down pure-bred animals as humbugs. Now, in the first place, 

 it was a chance if he got a decent bull — provided the animal was 

 good, he did not care for him properly. In the second place, 

 the cows may have been such a kind and in such a condition 



