152 THE NATURE AND TREATMENT OF 



foreign blood, and from the time of Solomon up to the pres- 

 ent day their pedigree has been watched and chronicled with 

 great care, so that no doubt exists as regards their consanguinity. 

 Their fine form, splendid action, endurance, spirit, speed, and 

 docility, can only be retained by preserving the race pure, and 

 this is an argument in favor of in-and-in breeding. 



No breed can be preserved pure unless the in-and-in system 

 be pursued. Take the Suffolk pig, for example ; so long as 

 we put " Suffolk to Suffolk" we get "pure" Suffolk ; and if 

 proper selections have been made, "good Suffolks" are the 

 result ; but deviate from direct lineage, and the breed degen- 

 erates, for better or worse, as the case may be, and they lose 

 their permanency of type, and cease to become pure bloods : — 



" From the brave descend the brave.'* 



The Suffolks in this country are notorious for a cutaneous 

 disease simulating scrofula ; and many suppose that this arises 

 in consequence of the in-and-in system of breeding ; this I 

 think is an error. It results from the evils of domestication, 

 and o6r want of knowledge in making proper selections. There 

 often is one or more animals in a litter, incapacitated by fault, 

 defect, or debility, to perpetuate the stamina and remarkable 

 points of the breed ; these are to be rejected. If we fail to do 

 so, the next generation, or the next to that, furnish more con- 

 vincing proof of error, which I contend exists in making" bad" 

 selections, and not in the above system. 



Turn for a moment to the history of the French Merino, and 

 we shall find that Victor Gilbert — a name familiar to 

 America's most successful sheep raisers — practised no other 

 than the in-and-in system of breeding. A lot of Merinos 

 were sent in 1786, by the Queen of Spain to the King of 

 France ; the latter, in order to benefit the agricultural com- 

 munity, sent half of tl^em to Rambouillet, and the other half 

 to Croissy. The climate happened to suit them, and they 

 were considered superior to the existing breeds in France. In 

 the year 1800, Victor Gilbert bought at Croissy a four-year-old 

 ram and eight ewes. He bred from those animals during a 



