270 BREEDING AND CROSSING. 



kin. The law of God forbids us to wed those who stand in 

 certain degrees of propinquity ; but, if we and our descend- 

 ants avail ourselves of the limits of this law, and marry on 

 its verge a certain number of times, misery must infallibly 

 be the lot even of the tenth generation ; and instead of be- 

 ing fathers of a mighty people, few and full of sorrow will 

 be the days of our children ; while in place of retaining in 

 their possession our darling wealth, it will, ere long, pass 

 into the hand of the stranger." 



In 1800, Mr. Ezra L'Hommedieu, Vice-President of the 

 New York State Agricultural Society, collected very many 

 observations and facts on the breeding of sheep, which went 

 to show the degenerating tendency of breeding in and in. 

 Mr. Dick, of Edinburgh, states, on information given him by 

 many intelligent farmers, that cattle bred in and in are sub- 

 ject to dyers in the throat after they have attained their first 

 year. Blacklock says — " Clyers are enlarged lymphatic 

 glands, which are a sure sign of what is termed a scrofu- 

 lous habit, and a breaking up of the constitution." 



Mr. Dickson asserts the following, which will be found in 

 the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, of Edinburgh : — " The 

 evil of breeding in and in, or, in other words, producing too 

 great refinement of tone, is manifested in the first place by 

 a tenderness of constitution ; the animals not being able to 

 withstand the extremes of heat and cold, rain and drought. 

 If the evil is prolonged through several generations, the 

 forms of the animals become affected, the bone becomes 

 very small, the neck droops, the skin of the head becomes 

 tight and scantily covered with hair, the expression of the 

 eye indicates extreme sensibility, the hair on the body be- 

 comes thin and short, and the skin as thin as paper ; the 

 jwints continue good, and predisposition to fatness increases, 

 but the whole carcase becomes much diminished in size, 

 though retaining its plumpness and beautiful symmetry. The 

 evil, however, does not terminate in the production of these 

 symptoms. Internal diseases ensue, such as disorganiza- 

 tion of the liver, or rot, polypi in the trachea, clyers, and 

 malformation of the neck and legs." A writer observes — 

 " It is from this cause that almost every Royal family con- 

 tains a large proportion of idiots, or, at the best, persons of 

 very weak intellect ; and such will continue to occur till 

 legislators fall on some plan of striking at the groundwork of 

 the mischief. If the laws of God and man define to us so 



