112 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



the reverie became too real for his welfare. In 

 the moment of his fancied pride he put his 

 thought into action and threw out his foot as 

 if to spurn the princess really to strike the 

 basket which contained the hopes of all his 

 glorious future, and to overturn it with its 

 fragile burden in a mass of splintered crystal 

 on the ground. All might have come true if 

 the ever-fatal if ; how often it intrudes it- 

 self into the affairs of men ! 



The work often goes on with the utmost 

 success for a time and entices with such allure- 

 ments as a taste of success is sure to hold out. 

 The danger never lies in the beginning, but in 

 the persisting in such a course. 



It is sometimes argued with no little show of 

 plausibility that the deterioration and physical 

 decay incident to very close and long-continued 

 line breeding does not result from the close 

 breeding but from an accidental constant re- 

 production of a defective or diseased feature 

 overlooked by the breeder. Hence that such 

 cases are the result of the carelessness of the 

 breeder in overlooking some such defect rather 

 than in any actual positive injury coming from 

 line breeding. But as all animals possess de- 

 fects of one kind or another, close line breed- 

 ing must tend to fix them ineradicably on the 

 offspring. It becomes just as needful then to 

 resort to fresh outcrosses to counteract this as 



