182 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



There are certain otlier perturbing influences to explain, 

 which would be to solve the whole mystery of heritage, and we 

 can only cite a few instances. A striking case, which has be- 

 come celebrated, is that of an English thoroughbred mare, 

 which in the year 1816 had a mule by a quagga — an animal of 

 the zebra kind — the mule bearing the unmistakable quagga 

 marks. In the years 1817,1818 and J 823, this mare again 

 foaled, and although she had not seen the quagga since 1816, 

 her three foals were all marked with the curious quagga marks. 

 Among our pure white Chester County hogs we often find a 

 litter partly black, owing, undoubtedly, to a crossing, genera- 

 tions back, with the Berkshires. These facts suggest the im- 

 portance to breeders of observing narrowly the first breedings 

 of the heifers, as a taint of impurity from inferior stock may 

 infect their whole progeny subsequently, and also of the impor- 

 tance of scrutinizing severely the pedigree of any animal to be 

 purchased for breeding purposes, that it may be ascertained that 

 he or she is " descended from a line of ancestors in which for 

 generations the desirable forms, qualities and characteristics 

 have been uniformly shown." Climate, food, age, health, etc., 

 exert influence upon individual variations ; the offspring of an 

 old male, for instance, and a young female, resembling the 

 father less than the mother in proportion as the mother is more 

 vigorous and the father more decrepit, the reverse being true of 

 the offspring of an old female and a young male. An animal 

 born of mature parents comes to its full growth and the enjoy- 

 ment of its functions much earlier than those born of parents 

 still young. Lambs born of old parents were said by Columella, 

 the old Roman agriculturist, to have but little wool, and that 

 little coarse, and to be often sterile. 



But notwithstanding these exceptions, a knowledge of which 

 is important to every breeder of pure stock, the transmission 

 of physical and mental qualities from parents to offspring is 

 one of those general facts of nature which lie patent to univer- 

 sal observation. Children resemble their parents. Were this 

 law not constant, there could be no constancy of species. " The 

 horse might engender the elephant, the squirrel might be the 

 progeny of a lioness, the tadpole of a tapir." But a sheep is 

 always and everywhere a sheep, a man a man, a pure-bred 

 Shorthorn is the progeny of Sliorthorn ancestry ; but though the 



