128 Breeding Plants and Animals. 



Thus relatively a few peculiarly constituted germs of 

 the breed came to be the basis of the breed, the rich 

 feed being simply the selecting agency, not directly 

 the producer of these germs. In the original hybrid 

 mixture were, a sufficient number of elements to be 

 framed as dominants into the ideal of form cornmonly 

 desired by*breeders. Far more of the latent elements, 

 small early-maturing blood were, no doubt, brought 

 forward from their atavic or as Mendel would say, 

 "recessive" retreats, while less of the coarse white and 

 large black blood was allowed to remain dominant. 

 The speculation seems reasonable that entirely new 

 combinations of characteristics were formed in the 

 blood and became dominated ; that is, hybridizing cre- 

 ated new forms. 



An extreme case of how this plan of selection for 

 mere appearance of individual form affected the breed 

 came recently to my notice. A certain breeder of Po- 

 land-Chinas in the Corn-belt produced annually a good- 

 ly number of pure-bred pigs which he sold early in 

 the autumn at auction to the farmers of his county. 

 He was breeding two families. One family raised an 

 average of eight pigs per sow. The other family rais- 

 ed an average of only four. The sows bearing only 

 four pigs were fairly good milkers and brought their 

 pigs forward to the auction in excellent form, large 

 and very attractive. The sows bearing eight pigs per 

 litter, though slightly better milkers, produced pigs 

 which could not compare with those of the other fami- 

 ly, because each of the eight pigs had only a limited 

 supply of his dam's milk. The thriftiest and most en- 

 terprising farmers were after the best and would vie 

 with each other for the plump, fine pigs from the well- 

 fed small litters and would bid the prices up to $35 

 apiece, netting the owners $120 or more per litter from 

 the sows bearing few pigs. The smaller though comely 

 pigs from the sows strong in fecundity would sell at 

 from $7 to $10, bringing on an average only $75 per 



