RACE. 7*7 



for producing both milk and meat, or high 

 quality of meat with early maturity has 

 induced numberless efforts to establish in- 

 termediate breeds, but all have failed. 



Shorthorn cattle are specially valued for 

 early maturity, and polled Aberdeenshire 

 for high quality of beef, but they are longer 

 in coming to maturity than Shorthorns. A 

 cross between the two usually combines the 

 advantages of both early maturity and 

 excellence in quality of meat and is thus 

 more profitable to the grazier than either of 

 the parent breeds. Farmers have in con- 

 sequence anxiously endeavoured to establish 

 an intermediate breed that would combine 

 the two qualities, and if their efforts had 

 been successful that is, if the intermediate 

 type had proved persistent a new breed or 

 race would have been established. But all 

 attempts in this direction have signally 

 failed. The mongrels from the hybrids in- 

 variably proved degenerate specimens in- 

 ferior to their pure ancestors in expression 

 of type and also weak in constitution and 

 so they disappeared, either through sterility 

 or debility. Darwin cites, as already men- 

 tioned, experiments with eggs of cross-bred 

 fowls, where nearly all the few chickens 

 that emerged from the shell died soon after, 



