60 EXCEPTIONAL QUALITIES. 



be an excellent milker, and all else that may be desirable 

 in a cow, yet these qualities in her are accidental. They 

 are not supposed to be transmissible with anything like 

 the certainty which exists where they are the fixed 

 and constant characteristics of the family. She is an 

 exception to the rule »of. her race. A good calf from 

 her, though not, of course, an impossibility, would be 

 very much the result of chance. The resort to any 

 but a distinguished breed of milkers cannot, therefore, 

 be recommended, nor can we expect to improve our 

 dairies by it. A disregard of this important matter has 

 led to endless disappointment, and has done much to 

 raise up unjust prejudices against the use of all im- 

 proved stock on our native cows. As if we could 

 expect nature to go out of her regular course to give 

 us a good animal, when we have violated her laws ! 



The offspring of these crosses will be grades ; but 

 grades are often better for the practical purposes of 

 the farmer than pure-bred animals. The skill of the 

 breeder is especially manifest in the selection of animals 

 to breed from, since both parents undoubtedly have a 

 great influence in transmitting the milking qualities of the 

 race. But this method of improvement requires less 

 exact and critical knowledge than the first, from the fact 

 that it is easier to appreciate the good points of an ani- 

 mal already perfected, or greatly improved, than to dis- 

 cover them in animals which it is our desire to improve, 

 and which are inferior in form, possessing only the ele- 

 ments of a better stock. It has also an immense advan- 

 tage, since results may be far more rapidly attained, and 

 improvements effected which, by the first method, — that 

 of creating or building up a race from the so-called 

 natives, by judicious selections, — would be looked for 

 in vain in the ordinary life of man. All grades are pro- 

 duced by this second method ; but all grades are not 



