HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 185 



coming so prominently to the front, both in 

 Scotland and in England, it is perhaps not un- 

 reasonable to expect that the next period of 

 breeding will be one characterized by very 

 general miscellaneous breeding. There are 

 very few men in this day of anything even re- 

 motely approaching extended experience who 

 would for a moment advocate or indulge in 

 incestuous breeding to any great extent. The 

 most that is now met with is line breeding 

 carried to so close a degree as to be inbreeding, 

 at least to a limited extent. 



To sum up, then: the historical testimony 

 drawn from the practice of the most famous 

 breeders is to the effect that incestuous breed- 

 ing was tried and found after a very short time 

 to be, even in the hands of the most skillful 

 breeders, an utter failure and a ruin to many 

 cattle ; that outcrosses are necessary not only 

 in order to maintain the constitutional vigor of 

 the cattle, but also to secure the best general 

 results ; that all, or nearly all, breeders have 

 abandoned the close methods of breeding as too 

 dangerous to be risked, even when believed to 

 be, as they still are by some, the surest road to 

 occasional phenomenal results. 



The gardener and the scientist find that the 

 most radical outcrosses, even to the extent of 

 hybridism, are the roads to really valuable 

 variation to better types. The history of 



