658 PRACTICAL PROBLEMS 



at best a mixture of good and evil, a mixture, moreover, that 

 will never purify itself, and that can be purified only by a return 

 to first principles. 



SECTION III FASHION 



As fashion decrees the cut of our clothes, so it also decrees 

 the length of the tail of a cow or the shape of her horn, and the 

 height at which a horse should raise his feet from the ground. 

 If fashion would be reasonable, and consistent, and stable, it 

 would not be so bad, for breeders could finally adjust themselves 

 to its demands ; but it is not stable, and often it is neither 

 reasonable nor consistent. 



Now it is not so easy to change the conformation of an animal 

 as it is to alter the cut of a garment, which means at the most 

 only a turn of the shears this way or that. Every one of these 

 decrees of fashion indicates an additional requirement for selec- 

 tion, and we know what that means to the breeder; not only 

 that, but such decrees are certain to be short-lived, changing for 

 others more or less troublesome. Worst of all, many of these 

 requirements of fashion are to the distinct and permanent dis- 

 advantage of the breed that is, permanent until bred out, 

 which we have learned requires approximately six generations 

 of successful selection. 



But the mandates of fashion are to be reckoned with, erratic 

 and troublesome though they may be, for in a very large measure 

 they determine sales and fix pv ices. Now the breeder is in the 

 business for money, and he must sell stock or abandon all hope 

 of profit, which in the end means to abandon the enterprise 

 entirely ~ and no phase of practical breeding calls for more wis- 

 dom and shrewdness than this particular problem, how to 

 meet the changing demands of the market and keep the herd or 

 stud intact and if possible improving. 



In so far as these fashions emanate from the open market 

 their control is practically beyond the breeder. But some of the 

 worst of them emanate from among the breeders themselves, who 

 sometimes seem bent on inventing artificial issues on which to 

 make sales. Sometimes there comes a feeling, apparently, that 



