CROSS BREEDING FOR WOOL. 249 



cross is an example of what has been previously mentioned 

 in a former article, viz., the prepotency of the pure and 

 standard bred ram upon the ewe, for in this cross breed 

 we find the white face and the thin fleece and the horns, 

 as well as the ewe, changed for the black face, the close 

 fleece, and the bare forehead of the improved race, now r , by 

 close breeding, having these points fixed and making a per- 

 manent characteristic of this breed, the new Hampshire. 

 The drawings of the wools of the three breeds from which 

 these two have been produced will show very clearly, as 

 clear in fact as the form and appearance of the animals 

 themselves do, how the iniiuence of the ram has been exerted 

 upon the fleece. 



If we study the make-up of the pure Southdown wool 

 and then that of the old Hampshire sheep, whose fleece was 

 coarse and uneven in its fiber, and compare these with 

 that of the new Hampshire, we can trace easily the mixture 

 of the two bloods in the variation of the fiber; how it has be- 

 come even, finer, and how it shows the half-way appearance 

 of the imbrications between the two. Then comparing the 

 last two, the Cotswold and the Oxford, we find distinctly 

 the Oxford fleece to be equally affected by the influence of 

 the more vigorous blood of the older breed in the same half- 

 way appearance of the imbrications on the fiber and in the 

 fineness of it. And in every instance we find these same re- 

 sults when the older and prepotent breed, because of its 

 longer line of breeding, has been crossed on any other one. 

 At the same time the under cross has always given its 

 greater weight of fleece to the half-bred progeny. 



Thus it is that this cross breeding is no haphazard busi- 

 ness, but is a truly scientific operation, needing two or more 

 elements in it, each of which is to be chosen advisedly, and 

 with a distinct purpose, as indeed all breeding must be to be 

 successful. One may as well expect to hit a mark with a 

 rifle with his eyes shut as to try to effect any useful purpose 

 in whatever line of breeding he may undertake without he 

 first takes the pains to fix the purpose of the breeding, and 

 then selects the materials with some well-defined view of 

 what he is attempting to produce. Even then there may be 

 disappointment, for it is not every animal in any specified 

 breed that is sure to meet the hopes and expectations of the 



