124 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



to the great benefit and advantage of the sick, 

 so in-and-in breeding may be resorted to in 

 order to produce a desired result which can 

 only be so attained, but always under the ex- 

 ercise of the highest degree of care and the 

 most watchful caution that like the cases of 

 cumulative action of certain poisons a similar 

 effect be not here produced. 



The principal reason, then, why this method 

 of breeding is one of constant and repeated 

 outcrosses is not so much that there is thought 

 to be any great virtue in an outcross as that 

 close breeding is avoided because it threatens 

 a positive evil. To avoid in-and-in breeding is 

 to breed more or less out-and-out. But it must 

 not be thought that this is the converse of the 

 course sometimes advocated by extreme in- 

 and-in breeding, namely: that an inbred animal, 

 though never so bad, is yet preferable for breed- 

 ing to animals of the same family line to a 

 complete stranger in blood, however excellent. 

 This makes a distinct virtue of the fact of the 

 near relationship. Here there is no such idea. 

 The fact that an animal is unrelated is chiefly 

 negative. If he is bad shun him. The deter- 

 mining quantity is individual excellence. If 

 the choice lies between a poor and unrelated 

 animal and a superior and closely-related one, 

 the latter should be selected. There are no 

 fetiches in this method. The aim is excellence ; 



