132 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



in-and-in breeding, that a large proportion of 

 winners are descended from winners, particu- 

 larly on the sire side, and mainly out of fami- 

 lies of cattle bred in a promiscuous manner. 

 It would be easy to run over the experience of 

 a life-time and bring forth a great number of 

 instances to confirm this position; but a great 

 mass of illustration, as it cannot by the neces- 

 sity of the case reach demonstration by mere 

 weight of quantity, however great, is of no 

 value, and I shall therefore only educe a few 

 notable and representative examples. One of 

 the most remarkable animals I ever owned or 

 saw was Loudon Duchess 2d. Her career in 

 the show-ring was extraordinary and almost 

 without a reverse, although exhibited from the 

 time she was a calf at many fairs, both in Ken- 

 tucky and several other States, during which 

 time she bred regularly and produced calves of 

 the highest class in every instance, her second 

 and third calves being the scarcely less distin- 

 guished show-yard winners Loudon Duchess 

 4th and Loudon Duke 6th, both of which were 

 esteemed by some excellent judges as of supe- 

 rior excellence to their dam. Loudon Duchess 

 4th, indeed, triumphed over perhaps the finest 

 ring of females I ever saw gotten together, 

 consisting of fifty-six head, at the Bourbon 

 Co. (Ky.) Fair in the autumn of 1870, when she 

 was a yearling. These calves were by Musca- 



