n8 Breeding Plants and Animals. 



of popularity which causes every animal of a certain 

 color to be bred causes retrogression. Domesticated 

 animals are an abnormal product. Breed from the 

 average and they will deteriorate through the opera- 

 tion of atavism. Breeding from the abnormally good 

 is necessary to retain present excellence and to improve 

 it. 



The third class is the one mainly in dispute. If we 

 can breed dual-purpose sheep, the Shropshire or Ram- 

 bouillets for example, why not dual-purpose cattle? 

 And if argument is made that wool and mutton pro- 

 duction are not so physiologically antagonistic as dairy 

 and beef production we have the general-purpose hens. 

 The Plymouth Reck, Wyandotte, Rhode Island Reds 

 and other breeds, or at least families of these breeds, 

 successfully unite egg and meat-production, presum- 

 ably in a way that makes the flock more valuable to 

 the farmer than the special-purpose egg breeds or the 

 special-purpose meat breeds. 



Many things in breeding commonly regarded as im- 

 possible are merely difficult. Nature has evolved men 

 for one class of work and women for another. Even 

 in our cattle the males of every breed are powerfully 

 masculine, while the other sex are mild-mannered and 

 feminine, thus resulting in sex duality within, the type. 

 All through the animal kingdom we find examples 

 which make it look quite possible to breed cattle of 

 high dairy efficiency when in milk and very good beef- 

 trs in the feed-yard and at the block. It must be ad- 

 mitted that we cannot secure highest excellence in each 

 quality in the combined animal, but this is not an ad- 

 mission that the combined value does not equal or ex- 

 ceed the single value of either of the special -purpose 

 types. 



Breeders of beef cattle may have been inclined to 

 lie down because special dairy breeders have held up 

 their large records and said they were outdone. Pos- 

 sibly dairy cow statistics have needlessly paralyzed the 



