CHAPTER III. 



PEDIGREED ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 



Readers of these pages do not need to be told of 

 the wonderful opportunities for profitable business in 

 improving and growing pedigreed animals to be sold 

 for breeders. The many advertising pages of the Agri- 

 cultural press speak louder than words that our breed- 

 ers are producing wonderful stock, and that America 

 has become the greatest market in the world for pedi- 

 greed animals. Our stock shows and public sales illus- 

 trate that live stock is of paramount interest in things 

 agricultural. We have no stronger, more vigorous, nor 

 more brainy class of men than those who make live 

 stock breeding and live stock growing their chief spec- 

 ialty. The enormous sales of live stock and live stock 

 products illustrate the interest our country has in do- 

 mesticated animals. 



Breeding animals as practiced is mainly an art, 

 though scientific methods are creeping in. The art as 

 now developed is too much subject to fashion. Standards 

 are not so determined as to consider or include all cor- 

 related qualities needed to give general values and the 

 fashions change, resulting in the loss of part of that 

 force of heredity which comes from long breeding in 

 one line. Mere fancy points and distinguishing marks 

 are too often bred into the surface, while intrinsic qual- 

 ities are not bred to uniformity. Artistic methods deal- 

 ing with the outward appearance should not be made 

 less important, but scientific methods dealing with 

 the intrinsic qualities should be largely developed. A 

 prominent poultry judge, in the writer's presence at a 

 national show in Chicago, placed all the weight of his 

 score card on the wattles, feathers, leg scales and other 

 mere "clothes" of the rooster of a meat breed and gave 



