GRADE BREEDING. 211 



Chicago Fat-Stock Show, Regulus, which was 

 out of a grade Short-horn and by a Hereford 

 bull, yet on the whole it is perhaps wisest for 

 the breeder of grades to use only one breed in 

 his work of improving. For, as we have seen 

 already, much care and judgment and knowl- 

 edge of the different breeds thus crossed is 

 necessary to insure success, and this is rarely 

 possessed by the breeder of grade cattle in- 

 deed, all too rarely by anyone. Thus Sir John 

 Sinclair says in regard to the general subject 

 of crossing two distinct breeds (and what he 

 says is precisely applicable here): "As to any 

 attempt at improvement by crossing two dis- 

 tinct breeds or races, one of which possesses 

 the properties which it is wished to obtain, or 

 is free from the defects which it is desirable to 

 remove, it requires a degree of judgment and 

 perseverance to render such a plan successful 

 as is very rarely to be met with." In the native 

 or unimproved stock the nature is plastic to a 

 much higher degree than in these fixed types 

 of improved stocks, and by the interfusion of 

 first one stock and then another with the na- 

 tive stock the fixity of type is gradually given 

 without losing the evil qualities accompanying 

 the unimproved stock. In some places we find 

 mixtures of Jersey and Hereford, Holstein and 

 Short-horn, and all manner of blood, till it is 

 well-nigh hopeless to try to breed them to a 

 good type. 



