COLLING'S MODE OF BREEDING. 47 



/ That Colling bred his cattle with one persistent object in view 

 ( there can be no question. It was to obtain the greatest concentration 

 } of good blood possible in his herd. His original cows he had selected 

 [ from among the best at his command, and in order to cement that 

 blood in its greatest strength, worked the blood of each into the 

 descendants of others, as far as is possible, so that it should be com- 

 mon to all. His original animals were not alike, differing much in 

 their various qualities, yet all having more or less g6od and sterling 

 points of character. Those different points will be more fully no- 

 ticed hereafter. In Favorite (252), Colling judged that the best 

 blood could be transmitted more successfully than through the veins 

 of any other bull. Nor was he mistaken. He used him for two, 

 three, four, and in one recorded instance five successive crosses in 

 his own heifers, with decided success and no deterioration of consti- 

 tution or quality in the very^ast cross he made in their production. 

 At the final sale of his herd in 1810, there were more of his animals 

 running back into the blood of Favorite than in all the other bulls 

 he had used, put together. The follwing analysis is so well expressed 

 that I quote it from the Rev. J. Storer, in Mr. Carr's late History of 

 the Booth Short-horns : 



" Few people have any idea of the amazing extent to wnicn in- 

 and-in breeding was carried on by the Brothers Colling ; and so great 

 was the complication it involved, that few of those who know the 

 outline of the circumstances, can adequately realize all their intrica- 

 cies. It is almost impossible to describe even proximately in some 

 of its stronger features the system they pursued. But the attempt 

 ought to be made ; for the Messrs. Colling's system of in-and-in breed- 

 ing, is not only one of the most remarkable and authentic cases in the 

 history of the reproduction of animals with which we are acquainted, 

 but the earlier Booth bulls were amongst those most strongly sub- 

 jected to its influence. 



" Mr. C. Colling's bull Bolingbroke, and his cow Phoenix, were 

 brother and sister on the sire's side, and nearly so on the dam's. 

 They were of the same family ; and the only difference in descent 

 was, that Bolingbroke was a grandson of Dalton Duke, while Phcenix 

 was not. But this apparent difference, slight as it is, was not all real; 

 for Dalton Duke also contained some portion of their common blood. 

 Arithmetically stated, the blood of the two being taken and divided 

 into thirty-two parts, twenty-nine of those parts were of blood common 

 to both, rather differently proportioned between them. Phoenix had 

 sixteen of those parts, Bolingbroke thirteen ; the latter having also 



