112 DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



English blood, and disappear almost entirely, leaving the im- 

 proving type in the ascendant. The influence, in fact, of this 

 type was so decided and so predominant, that all the lambs 

 produced strikingly resembled each other, and even Englishmen 

 took them for animals of their own country. But what was 

 still more decisive, when these young ewes and rams were put 

 together they produced lambs closely resembling themselves, 

 without any marked return to the features of the old French 

 races from which the grandmother ewes were derived. Some 

 slight traces only might perhaps be detected here and there by 

 an experienced eye. Even these, however, soon disappeared, 

 such animals as showed them being carefully weeded out of 

 the breeding flock. This may certainly be called ' fixing a 

 breed,"* when it becomes every year more capable of repro- 

 ducing itself with uniform and marked features." 



IV. ADDITIONAL HINTS. 



Farmers, like men in other branches of business, have an eye 

 on the profits of their industry ; and the more intelligent of 

 them are now fully convinced of the fact, that with proper care 

 and protection the improved and finer breeds do give a greater 

 product with the same amount of food than the inferior and 

 coarser breeds. It costs but little if any more to keep a cow 

 that will give a large quantity of rich milk than one that does 

 not pay for her food ; strong, active horses are far more profit- 

 able than poor, lazy ones ; a bushel of corn will make twice as 

 much pork when fed to a Berkshire or a Suffolk as to a Land- 

 Pike or Racer, and the best sheep will yield double the wool 

 and bring triple the price of the poorer kinds. 



Now every farmer may, in a few years, make great improve- 

 ment in his stock by selecting his best animals to breed from, 

 with an occasional infusion of fresh blood from other flocks 

 and herds (without reference to any of the celebrated improved 

 breeds), combined with proper attention to their feeding and 

 general management ; but unless he has a particular taste for 

 breeding animals, and unusnayacilities for the business, he will 



