PEDIGREE. 217 



tor possessed fame and merit, and that this 

 miserable descendant is called by his name. 



Pedigree, then, is a mere record of ancestry. 

 In the far past of every improved breed we- 

 find a starting point; a name which the merit 

 of him that bore it made descent enough. 

 None knew whence he came, or cared not to 

 record it. Thus we find such a case in the 

 Short-horn line in the Studley Bull. He is only 

 a name, without sire or dam that is known to 

 history. He stands on his own merit, a far-off 

 head-spring of a great and ever-swelling river. 

 Most of his descendants, which were doubtless 

 many, were lost to sight in the world of medi- 

 ocrity. But a little thin line preserved, per- 

 petuated and glorified this old bull's excellence, 

 and in Hubback won for it fame, and through 

 Favorite and many others his blood has passed 

 into a great part of the improved stock. There 

 were many of his descendants of a pedigree 

 very similar to the line which held the mission 

 of giving fame to it, but the descent was noth- 

 ing without the qualities of the old sire. The 

 descent only of those which honored it was 

 consequently preserved. 



We see, then, that pedigree rests on the idea 

 that "like produces like." Its value, therefore, 

 is consequent upon the truth of the laws of he- 

 redity. It is because men expect a good beast 

 from a good 'beast that they desire to know the 



