114 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



itant for the efficient cause. And it is not to 

 be denied that however much the early im- 

 provers were wanting in anything like a su- 

 perstitious reverence for the fetich of close 

 relationship, some who have come after them 

 have not wanted a belief that positive virtue 

 dwelt in and emanated from long-continued 

 breeding within the limits of incest, or at least 

 of a single family's lines. 



How much the line theory is an outgrowth 

 of the in-and-in breeding idea may be seen by 

 a comparison of some early definitions of in- 

 and-in breeding with that now most approved, 

 viz.: that in-and-in breeding is breeding within 

 the limits of what is known as incest in man; 

 is, in fine, " incestuous breeding." Thus Youatt 

 says that it is u the breeding from close affini- 

 ties/' which certainly embraces line breeding. 

 "Johnson's Farmers' Cyclopedia" says it is 

 the "breeding from close relations." Another 

 writer defines it as "breeding from the same 

 family, or putting animals of the nearest rela- 

 tionship together." All of these read more like 

 definitions of line breeding than of in-and-in 

 breeding. 



Haply we have a most admirable illustration 

 of this method furnished us on a large scale, and 

 in a condition as little artificial and as near to 

 a state of nature as possible in the white, so- 

 called wild cattle of England, which are more 



