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Farmers 1 Bulletin 1167. 



pedigree have not been directed by a high order of skillful selection, 

 the animal may have intensified powers of producing an undesirable 

 type, and may be what is commonly designated a " scrub purebred.'' 

 The purchase of an animal or its use for breeding purposes solely 

 on account of its pedigree is a dangerous matter and may result in 

 much more harm than good. 



What is the most important part of the pedigree? Usually only 

 the ancestors which are " close up " are those which are of practical 

 importance in determining the identity of the individual. Assuming 

 that Mendel's law governs animal inheritance, we may occasionally 



The Main Points of a Pedigree. 



FIG. 19. A graphic representation of the relative importance of ancestors in the first 

 four generations. Families in livestock often trace their foundation to a single animal 

 which may not be reached within ten generations. It is quite as important to know 

 what sort of animals make up the later matings as it is to know to what family the 

 animal belongs. The proof of the value of a pedigree is the worth of the animals it 

 produces. 



expect to find an off-type occurring, but by the repeated culling out 

 of such types the frequency of their occurrence is being constantly 

 reduced. Therefore, if we are sure of the parents and know what is 

 in the first three or four generations of an animal's pedigree, we 

 know the most important facts about that pedigree. In generations 

 beyond the third or fourth the influence of any ancestor is so slight 

 that for practical purposes it may be ignored. 



In a four-generation pedigree there are 30 ancestors, all of which 

 may be different individuals. Usually in pedigrees of most purebred 

 herds there are fewer than 30 separate individuals, depending on the 

 amount of inbreeding in the pedigree. The chart (fig. 19) shows this 



