PRINCIPLES OP IMPROVING DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



203 



of the past. As this principle of adaptation is truly 

 important, and not sufficiently studied, we shall ven- 

 ture to designate it by the terms, the Law of Circum- 

 stances. All living things being exposed to disease, 

 and the subjects of death and dissolution, life itself is 

 the creature of circumsfanceg. The farmer who will 

 make tlie circumstances which surround his domestic 

 animals most favorable to their natural wants, can 

 hardly fiiil to develope their highest constitutional 

 powers. A vitiated public taste, and the markets, 

 may demand that slaughtered animals be excessively 

 fat; but all experience goes to prove that unnatural 

 fatness either in a male or female, impairs its value 

 for breeding purposes. After consulting all the best 

 authorities on the subject, we are constrained to say 

 that the evils of breeding in-and-in, or with animals 

 of nearer kin, have been greatly magnified. Mr. Low, 

 late Professor of Agriculture, ia the University of 

 Edinburgh, in his valuable treatise on the " Domes- 

 ticated Animals of the British Islands," thus states 

 the common belief on this subject: 



" The nearer animals are allied in blood, the more 



comes unable to nourish them, and if the expirinient 

 be carried as far as the case wiU allow, the feeble and 

 frequently monstrous offspring will be incapable of 

 being reared up, and thus the miserable race will ut- 

 terly perish." 



A fair interpretation of the words in-and-in breed- 

 ing, does not require the perpetual pairing of broth- 

 ers and sisters, nor of parents and ofl'spring. As fam- 

 ilies extend, cousins of the first, second, and third de- 

 gree of consanguinity are soon called into existence, 

 with their peculiar constitutional developments and 

 anatomical variations. Although descended from the 

 same parentage, their blood becomes less and less 

 identical with each generation through which it passes 

 and thereby afTords every facility for gradually chang- 

 ing the practice of in-and-in breeding to propagating 

 in the line, without vitiating the purity of the blood. 

 When one has a male and female more perfect in 

 form than any other of the same species within his 

 reach, the fact of their being either brother and sis- 

 ter, or parent and offspring, does not justify the refu- 

 sal to unite the good qualities of both by breeding 



quickly is the similarity of characters distinctive of them together. To refuse to do so, and couple each 



the breed acquired. In the practice of English 

 breeders, it has not been uncommon to unite broth- 

 ers with sisters?, and parents with their direct proge- 

 ny, and to carry on this system for a long period. 

 The physiological effect is remarkable, not only pro- 

 ducing more quickly that community of characters 

 which constitutes a breed, but affecting the tempera- 

 ment and constitution of the animals. Undar this 

 system, long continued, animals manifest symptoms of 

 degeneracy, as if a violence had been done to their 

 natural instincts. They become, as it were, sooner 

 old; the males lose their virile aspect, and become 

 at length incapable of propagating their race, and 

 the females lose the power of secreting milk in suffi- 

 cient quantity to nourish their young. These effects 

 may not for a time be very observable, but by carry- 

 ing on the system sufficiently far, they never fail to 

 manifest themselves. Dogs continually reproduced 

 from the same litter, exhibit, after a time, the aspect 

 of feebleness and degeneracy. The hair becomes 

 scanty, or falls off, the size diminishes, the limbs be 

 come slender, the eyes sunk, and all the characters of 

 early age present themselves. Hogs have been made 

 the subjects of similar experiments. After a few 

 generations, the victims manifest the change induced 

 in the system. They become of diminished size, the 

 bristles are changed into hair, the limbs become fee- 

 ble and short, the litters diminish in frequency and in 

 the number of the young produced, the mother be- 



with an animal decidedly inferior, would be breeding 

 downward instead of upward. Bakewell's rule was 

 to select at all times the parents that pleased him 

 best, regardless of consanguinity; and no other im- 

 prover of stock has had greater success. 



Cross-breeding, in the opinion of many, has been 

 productive of more harm than good; because in a 

 large majority of cases it has been unwisely practiced. 

 Defects in all breeds seem to be brought out with 

 peculiar intensity when any one is forced out of its 

 natural line of descent, and made to mingle its blood 

 with that of another. The greater the difference be- 

 tween the two breeds, the more likely is the progeny 

 to be deformed, or defective in some or many points. 

 With few exceptions, the best results have been at- 

 tained by keeping all breeds distinct, and skilfully se- 

 lecting both males and females in each for the im- 

 provement of the race. In this way, all confusion of 

 breeds is happily avoided, while the excellencies of 

 each have every possible chance for perfect develop- 

 ment. In speaking of the Gallaway breed of cattle, 

 so famous in Scotland, Prof. Low says: "Efforts 

 have, from time to time, been made to cross the breed 

 by the Dishly long-horns, the Ayrshire, and the mod- 

 ern Short-Horns. These attempts, it is believed, have 

 all been failures, in so far as they were intended to 

 improve the general breed of the country; and mod- 

 ern breeders, with better knowledge, have turned 

 their attention to the improvement of the existing race." 



