CHAPTER XIV 



HEREDITY 



" Heredity " refers to the distribution of racial characters 

 among individuals of successive generations. On the principle 

 of heredity all successful breeding operations depend, and the 

 practical breeder needs to know all that is to be known concern- 

 ing the manner in which succeeding generations are built up out 

 of those characters which constitute the heritage of the race. 



To define " heredity " as the direct and personal relation 

 between the individual parent and the individual offspring is 

 not only to restrict its meaning within too narrow limits but to 

 destroy its significance to the breeder and deceive him as to 

 the actual facts of transmission during descent. " Heredity " \ 

 properly refers to the group that constitutes the parentage and . 

 the related group that constitutes the offspring. 



All investigations show that both groups vary greatly among 

 themselves, and to predict about where, within the racial range, 

 an individual will fall as compared with its personal parent, 

 this is the object of a critical study of heredity, and the constant 

 aim of the practical breeder. There is no hope that the offspring 

 will be like the parent, except in a very general sense, but to 

 predict how near it is likely to approach the parent, this is 

 something that requires not only the widest knowledge of the 

 ancestry but the most accurate understanding possible of the facts 

 and principles of heredity. It is the purpose now to inquire some- 

 what specifically into some of these general facts and principles, 



SECTION I HOW CHARACTERS BEHAVE IN 

 TRANSMISSION 



The particular characters that associate themselves together, 

 constituting a race, variety, or breed, have separate histories as 

 the generations come and go. Each has an identity and a history 



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