Chap. XVII. EVIL FROM INTERBREEDING. 97 



was, that " to breed in-and-in from a bad stock was ruin and de- 

 vastation; yet that the practice may be safely followed within 

 certain limits when the parents so related are descended from first- 

 rate animals." We thus see that there has been much close inter- 

 breeding with Shorthorns ; but Natkusius, after the most careful 

 study of their pedigrees, says that he can find no instance of a 

 breeder who has strictly followed this practice during his wholo 

 life. From this study and his own experience, he concludes that 

 close interbreeding is necessary to ennoble the stock ; but that in 

 effecting this the greatest care is necessary, on account of the ten- 

 dency to infertility and weakness. It may be added, that another 

 high authority 7 asserts that many more calves are born cripples 

 from Shorthorns than Ironi other and less closely interbred races 

 of cattle. 



Although by carefully selecting the best animals (as Nature 

 effectually does by the law of battle) close interbreeding may be 

 long carried on with cattle, yet the good effects of a ci\>ss between 

 almost any two breeds is at once shown by the greater size and 

 vigour of the offspring ; as Mr. Spooner writes to me, " crossing 

 distinct breeds certainly improves cattle for the butcher." Such 

 crossed animals are of course of no value to the breeder ; but they 

 have been raised during many years in several parts of England to 

 be slaughtered ; 8 and their merit is now so fully recognised, that 

 at fat-cattle shows a separate class has been formed for their re- 

 ception. The best fat ox at the great show at Islington in 1862 

 was a crossed animal. 



The half-wild cattle, which have been kept in British parks pro- 

 bably for 400 or 500 years, or even for a longer period, have been 

 advanced by Culley and others as a case of long -continued inter- 

 breeding within the limits of the same herd without any consequent 

 injury. With respect to the cattle at Chillingham, the late Lord 

 Tankerville owned that they were bad breeders. 9 The agent, Mr. 

 Hardy, estimates (in a letter to me, dated May, 1861) that in the 

 herd of about fifty the average number annually slaughtered, killed 

 by fighting, and dying, is about ten, or one in five. As the herd 

 is kept up to nearly the same average number, the annual rate of 

 increase must be likewise about one in five. The bulls, I may add, 

 engage in furious battles, of which battles the present Lord Tan- 

 kerville has given me a graphic description, so that there will 

 always be rigorous selection of the most vigorous males. I pro- 

 cured in 1855 from Mr. D. Gardner, agent to the Duke of Hamilton, 



7 Mr. Wright, ' Journal of Royal bred his herd in-and-in for some years, 



Agricult. Soc.,' vol. vii., 1846, p. '204. "lost in one season twenty - ei^ht 



Mr. J. Downing (a successful breeder calves solely from want of constitu- 



of Shorthorns in Ireland) informs me tion." 



that the raisers of the great families 8 Youatt on Cattle, p. 202. 



of Shorthorns cai - efully conceal their 9 ' Report British Assoc, Zoolog, 



sterility and want of constitution. He Sect.,' 1838. 

 adds that Mr. Bates, after he had 



VOL. II. H 



