AYRSHIRE, JERSEY, AND DUTCH MILKS : 



THEIR FORMATION AND PECULIARITIES. 



THE philosophy of breeding teaches that every 

 observed effect must have been preceded by an ade- 

 quate cause, and that intelligence and skilled ob- 

 servation may enable our reason to trace out the 

 sequences which connect the one with the other with 

 such exactitude as is permissible to our knowledge. 

 It also teaches that inheritance is a form of force as 

 uniform in its action, and as invariable, as is the force 

 of gravity. Like gravity, its action is modified and 

 interfered with by opposing forces, which disguise 

 oftentimes its phenomena. As gravity acts alike on 

 the feather and the bullet, so does inheritance act 

 alike on all animals. In vitality we have such a 

 complexity of phenomena, that a right interpretation 

 is oftentimes difficult, if not impossible ; yet the 

 grand law of inheritance, the transmissal of qualities 

 possessed by ancestors, may be disguised in indi- 

 viduals, but cannot be denied to the race. 



It is to this universal law of inheritance, as modi- 

 fied by other laws, the resultant of whose forces is 

 the animal form , that we are to seek the explana- 

 tion of the variations that occur between members of 

 the same species, breed, families, and individuals. 



