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to which it has been transported. The animals, without 

 being absolutely ill (far from it), do not possess, pending this 

 contest, all the strength of heritage belonging to their race. 



If the breeder has not been careful to select reproduc- 

 tions of an old race, endowed with great powers of resistance, 

 acclimatised, and not only in good health, but full of vigour, 

 he has proportionately diminished his chances of success. 



If the animals are not of a very pure race, and 

 supposing the breeder to have a plan fixed on in advance 

 (such as the production of wool of a certain quality), the 

 efforts which he may make to gain his end generally prove 

 futile. 



Selection fixes on the product, beauty, quality, fitness, 

 and defects in a word, the characteristics of the race from 

 which these products come. In order, therefore, to use this 

 method with success, a choice should be made with care, 

 from the race on which it is proposed to operate, of breeding 

 animals gifted in the highest degree with the beauties and 

 qualities which it is desired to maintain and develop, and ex- 

 empt as much as possible from the defects sought to be 

 obliterated. It is absolutely necessary that the breeder should 

 have beforehand a perfectly well-defined plan, and that he 

 should adhere to it with that perseverance which is necessary 

 to success. He should have well graven on his mind the 

 exact model of the animal he wishes to produce, and should 

 not lose sight of that image for a single instant ; he may be 

 perfectly convinced that the least negligence, the least error, 

 will result in a "statu quo" even supposing a falling back is 

 not the consequence. 



Where there is only one quality to develop, and one 

 defect to efface, the task is long and difficult ; far more is 

 this the case when seeking to bring out several qualities and 

 to suppress a number of blemishes. 



We think it is always more advantageous for a breeder 

 to avail of the work of those who have preceded him in 

 the career, and (rather than to follow up improvements in 

 animals more or less common, of whose exact origin he is 

 probably ignorant) to obtain animals of a pure and perfect 

 race, increasing their number by raising stock, and adopting 

 the general principles which I have recalled in the foregoing 

 lines. 



Consanguinity (in-and-in-breeding) is nothing less than 

 Selection pushed to an extreme, and practiced in the family 

 instead of in the entire race. It is, therefore, the family 

 itself which furnishes all animals devoted to the purposes 

 of reproduction ; in this way the father and the daughter, 

 the mother and her son, the brother and his sister, are allied 

 together. It can easily be understood that if Selection fixes 

 the characteristics of a race, Consanguinity must, a fortiori, 



