LINE BREEDING. 



THERE has been much discussion as to what 

 is meant exactly by 'line breeding." It is com- 

 paratively new as a word applied to a distinct 

 system of breeding, and it has acquired some- 

 thing of a special character, in addition to its 

 old general application, on account of its adop- 

 tion by certain breeders to describe their own 

 peculiar methods. It may, perhaps, be not in- 

 accurately defined as the process of breeding 

 within a few closely related stocks or families, 

 no animals being interbred which are not 

 closely connected in the general lines of their 

 blood, the idea being apparently that all the 

 animals so interbred are of the same "line" 

 of descent. This, if pressed to close accuracy, 

 would, of course, be the same as in-and-in 

 breeding. But by a little latitude of expres- 

 sion the "line" might be, and indeed has been, 

 so expanded as to include relationships more 

 distant than would properly be thought within 

 the true purview of in-and-in breeding. 



Historically this practice is an offshoot from 

 the main stem of in-and-in breeding. It is now 

 a number of decades since the last successful 

 scientific breeder deserted the sinking ship of 



(106) 



