FIXING GOOD TRAITS 



one rule that has actuated the developer of special 

 races has been to apply the principle of inbreeding. 

 When an individual appeared in a herd or flock 

 that showed certain peculiarities that the owner 

 thought desirable, the natural and obvious way 

 of perpetuating these was to breed from that 

 individual; and then persistently, for a time, to 

 inbreed the progeny in order to accentuate the 

 desired trait. 



The result has often been all that could be 

 expected. Take, for instance, the case of the 

 trotting-horse. 



It is, I believe, a matter of record that 

 practically the entire stock of trotters, as developed 

 in America in the past hundred years, descended 

 from a single ancestor, the celebrated "Messenger." 

 This individual horse chanced through some 

 accidental mixture of ancestral strains to combine 

 in its organization the particular qualities of nerve 

 and muscle that adapted it for rapid progress by 

 trotting instead of by the more natural method of 

 running: 



And as regards this quality or combination of 

 qualities, the horse proved amazingly prepotent. 



Its descendants soon constituted a race of 

 trotters. Pedigrees were kept; the best individuals 

 of the new race were selected as breeders; closely 

 related animals were mated; and the character- 



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