CHARACTERISTICS OF BREEDS. 131 



every man, and whatever else he may be obhged to 

 leave undone, for want of ability, none should be content 

 to fall short of this. Those who have the command of 

 ample means will of course desire that improvement 

 should be as rapid as possible. They will endeavor at 

 once to j^rocure well bred animals, or in other words, 

 such as already possess the desired qualities so thor- 

 oughly inwrought into their organization that they can 

 rely with a good degree of confidence on their impart- 

 ing them to their progeny. 



It may be well to allude here to a distinction between 

 breeds and races. By breeds, are understood such vari- 

 eties as were originally produced by a cross or mixture, 

 like the Leicester sheep for example, and subsequently 

 established by selecting for breeding purposes only the 

 best specimens and rejecting all others. In process of 

 time deviations become less frequent and greater uni- 

 formity is secured ; but there remains a tendency, 

 greater or less in proportion to the time which elapses 

 and the skill employed in selection, to resolve itself 

 into its original elements, to breed back toward one or 

 other of the kinds of which it was at first composed. 



By races, are understood such varieties as were 

 moulded to their peculiar type by natural causes, with 

 no interference of man, no intermixture of other varie- 

 ties, and have continued substantially the same for a 

 12* 



