10 



tificates of registration attadied, only to find their mistakes 

 later. Such work embitters the new breeder and keeps the 

 quality of pure-bred stock at a low average. 



In live-stock improvement let not the selection for individual 

 excellence and breeding overshadow the importance of an equal 

 consideration of feed and care. Let us not forget that im- 

 proved live stock, as we have already indicated, is the product 

 of good breeding, strongly coupled with good feeding. The 

 improved animal is an overdraft on nature, the old stock being 

 transformed to meet artificial conditions; and it follows that to 

 retain and continue improvement these factors must not in 

 any way be neglected. When the improving influences are 

 discontinued the tendency is to revert to the ancestral type, 

 and the characteristic last acquired is apt to be the first lost; 

 for example, the dairy cow that we are so proud of is not 

 many generations removed from the wdld cow that could fight 

 her way for life and feed, and gave enough milk to keep her 

 calf alive until it was four months old and then went dry. By 

 bestowing feed and care, together with careful selection, we 

 have improved her to her present excellence in milk produc- 

 tion; but turn her out, 'let her fight her way again, and if she 

 does not die in the transformation her year-round milking in- 

 clination will vanish and her descendants will take on the type 

 of the old-time cow. 



The tendencies are against improvement. For this reason 

 live-stock improvement is an upstream proposition. It is a 

 task for men of intelligence, judgment and character. 



