188 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



distinct breeds where the breeds are both well 

 recognized improved breeds; and secondly, 

 crosses between an improved breed and a 

 native, or unimproved stock. The conditions 

 of the two methods of crossing are quite differ- 

 ent. The latter we usually speak of as "grad- 

 ing-up" and the resulting offspring we call 

 "grades." The former is most distinctively 

 termed "crossing" and the resulting products 

 are called "crosses" or "cross-bred cattle." 



Cross breeding in its 'narrower sense of 

 crosses between two distinct breeds of im- 

 proved stock has lost much of its importance 

 on account of the great value which is now put 

 upon pedigree. Pedigree and the absolute 

 purity of blood, to say nothing of the demand 

 so often made for a single, or at most a few 

 strains of ultra-fashionable blood, have in re- 

 cent years been so much the dominant features 

 of cattle-breeding as to make it almost impos- 

 sible for any breeder to go contrary to the 

 popular tendency. The tendency of an earlier 

 day was quite the reverse. There was a gen- 

 eral sentiment prior to the time of Bakewell, 

 the Collings, and other contemporary or nearly 

 contemporary improvers, that the cattle and 

 domestic animals as they then existed were of a 

 poor quality and could be and ought to be im- 

 proved. How to do this was the question, and 

 the general sentiment of the time adopted the 



