234 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



well to remember that the moral value and the 

 position given by such knowledge is greater 

 even than the monetary value, but that the 

 latter, in saving from unwise purchases and 

 pointing the way to wise purchases, is far 

 greater than most breeders suspect. 



In conclusion, as an old breeder of long ex- 

 perience, who has seen many fashions come 

 and go, I may perhaps be pardoned for adding 

 a word here urging all breeders to beware of 

 taking the view that pedigree is gauged by the 

 paper exhibit. As the pedigree is merely the 

 record of the animal's descent, and that descent 

 is only worth preserving because the animals 

 enumerated were of so great merit as to de- 

 serve being remembered on the theory of he- 

 reditary transmission of their qualities, so in 

 adding cross after cross to our pedigrees we 

 ought to remember that merit alone adds to 

 the value of the pedigree, and each cross made 

 with a bad animal is adding a minus quantity 

 and detracting from the real value of the pedi- 

 gree. For a time fashion and fancy may main- 

 tain this or that family in favor and price be- 

 cause of the way the pedigree reads (because 

 excellence in the past has won reputation, in 

 most cases), but if unworthy representatives 

 are kept on an equal footing with good, by rea- 

 son of such fancy, a day of reckoning will surely 

 come. In that day the breeder will suffer. 



