SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS. 259 



and reputation. Such fancies and foolish no- 

 tions run their day, bringing with them money 

 and worldly success to some indeed, much as a 

 corner in wheat does but eventually they fade 

 away and leave the world almost unaffected by 

 their advent and departure. I cannot advise 

 anyone to run after such fancies. On the other 

 hand, I would warn all to look carefully into the 

 reason of the popularity of any special family 

 or tribe, and to take nothing which does not 

 show good quality and old lineage. 



Some families of cattle are the victims of 

 misrepresentation and malignance. Now and 

 then in the history of competing fashions 

 the owners of one family in the bitter spirit 

 of partisan warfare have attacked the char- 

 acter of their rivals' cattle, and though some- 

 times unjustly and even falsely, the barb has 

 stuck in the flesh. Out of such attacks, re- 

 peated over and over again by the malicious, 

 the wiseacres eager to show a little knowledge, 

 and the blind followers of these two more ac- 

 tive classes, a fixed doubt has sometimes grown 

 up making the stock sprung from these families 

 bad investments although not badly bred. This 

 is so for the simple reason that as a business 

 principle no man can afford to deal in goods 

 that a part of the natural customers of his 

 trade regard with suspicion. I knew, for in- 

 stance, a case many years ago of a gentleman 



