110 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



duce variations for the wide-awake breeder 

 to seize and Hx by every means in his power, 

 and so bring his stock to a type of great even- 

 ness by raising them to this ideal standard. 

 This can only be done by infinite labor and 

 pains. Nature never stands still ; her laws re- 

 quire progress or decay will ensue. So if man 

 supinely contents nimself with any already at- 

 tained standard and lets the work of man go on 

 simply in an effort to fix without improvement, 

 deterioration is almost inevitably the conse- 

 quence. Every fault will fix itself. Faults 

 and defects in forms and organisms are nearly 

 always more surely reproduced than good qual- 

 ities. Cattle thus bred commonly show a de- 

 terioration in size and vigor most of all. If 

 the lines are drawn very close and narrow the 

 same faults as are to be found with in-and-in 

 breeding, in a somewhat less degree, are ob- 

 served ; and last, but by no means least, when 

 the processes of fixing the type and deteriorat- 

 ing the animals have gone forward long, judi- 

 cious outcrosses do not rapidly overcome the 

 inbred evils. 



I know an instance under my own observa- 

 tion of a splendid herd of excellently bred cat- 

 tle in which a system of close line breeding 

 has after some twenty years of experiment, 

 under the supervision of good judges of cattle, 



