PART IV PRACTICAL PROBLEMS 



CHAPTER XVI 



SELECTION 



We have just seen the power of selection to fix type, providing 

 it continue unchanged for five or six generations. By this we 

 discover that selection is the most direct and powerful means of 

 improvement at the disposal of the breeder; indeed, it would 

 not be too much to say that it is the only means of permanent 

 improvement that is under his direct control. 



In most phases of the breeding problem the stockman or the 

 plant improver is an on-looker merely ; but in the matter of 

 selection he becomes an active agent, and his decisions and his 

 acts are powerful either for good or evil in controlling the des- 

 tinies of the breed or the variety he handles. 



In this, to a very large extent, he supplants natural selection, 

 and if he is to succeed he must be well grounded in four funda- 

 mentals when he thus takes a hand in the course of nature : 



1. He must have a clear idea of what he desires to accomplish, 

 and he must adhere persistently to one standard. 



2. He must be well informed as to the history of the breed 

 or the variety he handles and of the variations, both new and 

 old, which it is likely to afford. 



3. He must know the general principles involved in selection 

 in order to know the forces with which he deals and what is 

 likely to happen when he interferes. 



4. He must have judgment as to when and how far he may 

 depart from sound practice on account of economic or other 

 considerations. 



When we reach this phase of breeding operations we begin to 

 touch financial as well as biological principles, and all this must 



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