160 CATTLE-BREEDING. 







Duchesses. A complete bold break alone could 

 save the herd; at least so seemed Mr. Bates to 

 think. The suddenness and completeness of 

 the change is well illustrated by the fact that 

 the Duchesses from 33d to 43d covering a 

 period of seven full years are everyone by 

 sires having no drop of Duchess blood in them. 

 Then, as we shall see that Mr. Richard Booth 

 did under similar circumstances, he began to 

 inbreed again the cattle which he had by this 

 outcrossing filled with fresh and vigorous blood, 

 but never again with the same recklessness that 

 he had formerly shown. With the 51st Duch- 

 ess the Oxford cross first comes in, that is in 

 1840; with the 52d, in 1841, the Holker cross 

 first appears, and so on with constant admix-* 

 ture of strains till the last Bates Duchess 

 the 64th was calved in 1849. When viewed 

 in tabular form the marked changes in the 

 method of breeding practiced on this family 

 is very striking and instructive. Duchesses 1st 

 to 6th are inbred; then 7th to 9th introduce 

 the Marske cross; 10th to 23d are mostly in- 

 bred again, with the half outcross of 2d Hub- 

 back coming in occasionally, while it appears 

 solidly from 24th to 32d; 33d to 43d are totally 

 outbred, and from 44th to 64th are very care- 

 fully, even timidly, inbred and mixed. The 

 practice of Mr. Bates clearly represents not 

 merely the opinions expressed by Mr. Bates 



