220 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



brought together in one animal, then, indeed, 

 is a man justified in expecting a corresponding 

 excellence in the produce of such an animal as 

 the one to which this pedigree belongs. Then 

 the pedigree may fairly be said to be a guaranty 

 of excellence. 



To generalize broadly, then, a pedigree is a 

 mere record of an animal's ancestors; the fun- 

 damental idea of pedigree is that like produces 

 like, and the value of the pedigree grows out 

 of the fact that we expect an animal to breed 

 according as it is bred, i. e., that its offspring 

 will resemble itself, and as it is a combined 

 likeness of its sire and dam, that its offspring 

 will, in so far, resemble that sire and dam, and 

 so on, hence as are the animals in the pedigree 

 so will the descendants be good if they are 

 good, bad if they are bad. Therefore it be- 

 comes the veriest folly to breed from an in- 

 ferior animal whose sire and dam were also 

 inferior. Such an animal cannot be expected 

 to breed well. Hence fashions in pedigree 

 often lead to great harm. For if we become 

 so wedded to certain blood lines as to breed to 

 no animal not of those lines the time is almost 

 sure to come when bad animals are used for the 

 sake of their pedigree alone. Oftentimes ani- 

 mals of the temporarily popular strains are so 

 few and so high-priced on that account that 

 men will use them on most excellent stock for 



