172 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



the inheritor of them, for being descended from 

 the stocks of Messrs. Wright and Charge Mus- 

 sulman's ancestry had all been well known to 

 Mr. Booth for generations. It has been as- 

 serted by overzealous advocates of the system 

 of close interbreeding that the crosses of Mus- 

 sulman, Lord Lieutenant, Matchem, and others 

 introduced scarcely any fresh blood into the 

 Booth herds; for inasmuch as no alien bulls 

 were used but those whose veins were sur- 

 charged with the blood of Favorite, the re- 

 course to them was nothing more than a 

 recurrence to, or renewal of, the old family 

 strain; but this is really only what is true of 

 every well-bred Short-horn of the period, and 

 therefore proves nothing. * * * It will not 

 do, therefore, to claim bulls as of kindred blood 

 on this ground only. Moreover, it must in 

 candor be admitted by the advocates of in- 

 and-in breeding that a careful consideration 

 of the above facts leads to one unavoidable 

 conclusion. Very strong in-and-in breeding is 

 a totally different thing in our case from what 

 it was in the case of the earlier breeders the 

 Collings and Mr. Thomas Booth so different 

 that there can be but little analogy between 

 the two cases. They bred in-and-in from ani- 

 mals which had little or no previous affinity. 

 We breed in-and-in from animals full of the 

 same blood to begin with. In our case the via 



