192 INFLUENCE OF REMOTE ANCESTRY. 



are in form, in mind, in capacity for useful services 

 to man, because particular individuals rather than 

 others are related to them. The mating of male and 

 female not only ensures offspring, but offspring im- 

 pressed with the individual stamp of the parentage, 

 more or less disguised. A change of mating is fol- 

 lowed by a changed character of the fruit, and each 

 parent contributes to form the general mould in 

 which the offspring is cast. 



The influence of near ancestry is commonly more 

 obvious than of ancestry lying at three or four or a 

 dozen removes. Peculiarities we are apt to ascribe 

 to the moulding force of near kindred ; but we should 

 not forget that this moulding force passes from gen- 

 eration to generation, and that the animal before us is 

 the outcome of successive steps, of which neither the 

 sequence, nor the character, could have been differ- 

 ent without occasioning an animal different in some 

 particulars. 



Improvement is not readily fixed in a family by 

 two or three or a half-dozen successive judicious 

 mat ings. No existing breed of cattle, of marked 

 value, is less than a hundred years old, though 

 it is a little less time since the value of the stock 

 became widely recognized and the record of marked 

 improvement begins. We know what value is 

 attached to Short-horn cattle whose lineage can 

 be traced to famous animals living in the latter 

 half of the last century. The best Devons descend 

 from animals of local fame living in the early part of 

 the present century. The fountain-head of the breed 



