Breeding Dual-Purpose Cattle. 123 



or association and other general business matters could 

 be arranged much as suggested in connection with 

 breeding beef cattle, and dairy cattle. The standards of 

 excellence and the methods of recording values would 

 be more complicated and even more difficult. 



No doubt it will require a longer time, more ex- 

 pense, and most difficult of all, more patient waiting 

 on the part of the members of the association, to breed 

 dual-purpose cattle than to breed either of the two 

 special classes. But the possible outcome is larger, 

 and I believe that only a few years would so reveal 

 the large possibilities that those in the co-operative en- 

 terprises would become enthusiastic. Of course the 

 personal equation is here,, as in most experiments, a 

 very important factor. Much would depend on the 

 leading spirits and on those responsible for directing 

 and performing the details of purchasing foundation 

 stocks, feeding, testing, tabulating, and interpreting the 

 results, and in their use in mating animals. 



Breeding cannot be all reduced to cold formal sta- 

 tistics. Personal experience, judgment and even intui- 

 tion must always be recognized as playing very im- 

 portant parts in the selection of foundation animals. 

 Some plant breeders have developed to a marked de- 

 gree intuitive faculties of selecting useful forms, oft- 

 times selecting intelligently long before the desired 

 flowers or fruits are developed. And our best animal 

 breeders claim that they possess intuitive abilities which 

 they cannot express in language. A prominent Here- 

 ford breeder recently said he could often discern that 

 a certain young bull would be a remarkable breeder, 

 yet he could not express to another the basis for that 

 belief, and I am ready to believe that he is correct. 

 Life is too subtle to be wholly subject to the measur- 

 ing rule or the weighing scales. 



