HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 155 



closely as possible to his own stock. It is im- 

 possible on the one hand to resist the conclu- 

 sion that the views of the line breeders of 

 today would have received scant consideration 

 at the hands of Mr. Bates; and on the other 

 that he engaged in in-and-in breeding, when- 

 ever he practiced it, not as a thing good in 

 itself, but as a necessary evil an evil threat- 

 ening harm but rendered necessary by the 

 supposed fact that no cross fit for his "pinks of 

 perfection" could be found. Mr. Bell plainly 

 sets forth in his so-called "History" what Mr. 

 Bates' opinion in this matter was: "As to in- 

 and-in breeding," says he,* "I believe that Mr. 

 Bates considered that it required the greatest 

 judgment and experience. He had the diffi- 

 culty of obtaining bulls of as good or superior 

 blood to his cows." Mr. Bell is not always as 

 clear in his statements as he might be, nor is 

 he invariably so reliable as not to be advan- 

 taged by a corroboration from another source. 

 It is, therefore, well to cite another testimony 

 to the same effect. This we find in a paper by 

 Mr. W. Wood in the "Gardener's Chronicle" for 

 1855, and in another similar paper in 1860. He 

 says that Mr. Bates expressed himself as think- 

 ing that "to breed in-and-in from a bad stock 

 was ruin and devastation, yet the same might 

 be safely practiced within certain limits when 

 the parents so related were descended from 



*Page 201. 



