CHAPTER IV 



BREEDS, SUBBREEDS, FAMILIES, VARIETIES, 

 CROSS-BREEDS AND GRADES 



THE term "breed," as used by the farmer, signifies 

 a group or class of animals having a number of dis- 

 tinctive qualities and characteristics in common, and 

 the power to transmit those distinctive traits with a 

 good degree of certainty. Such groups of animals 

 have distinctive names, such as "thoroughbred," 

 "Clydesdale," "Pereheron," "Shorthorns" and recorded 

 pedigrees usually tracing back for two, three or more 

 generations. In the case of a long-established breed, 

 as the Shorthorns, the recorded pedigree may go 

 back a hundred years or more and for many generations. 



A breed is usually started by selecting two or more 

 unusually good animals from a group that has been 

 produced in a locality by reason of better food, en- 

 vironment and intelligent selection, and which is 

 usually superior to the animals of the same species in 

 other localities. These few having been selected, 

 inbreeding is practiced to a greater or less extent for 

 the purpose of perpetuating and intensifying one or 

 more desired characteristics. At first this work is 

 usually carried on by one, or at most a few, of the 

 most intelligent breeders, who, by improving condi- 

 tions, have first improved the quality of their own 



