CHAPTER IX. 

 ON THE INTERMINGLING OF BREEDS, 



It was the craze with the showmen to possess cattle of fancy 

 colours, that sent the white back, checkered-faced cattle to the 

 slaughter-houses, and the dark-nosed calves to the pig-pots. Of 

 course, there was that cruel jealousy in existence also which caused 

 good young bull-calves to be cut up into food for cats and dogs 

 sooner than allow one's next-door neighbour to get the strain. But 

 the craze for show-ring animals and crossbred test cows was ul- 

 timately the means of thinning out to a great extent the old types 

 from which those show animals and test cows sprang. We might, 

 therefore, reasonably ask ourselves is it too late even now to get 

 back again to those old-time dairy animals? How have breeds 

 been founded? It is, in the writer's opinion, the first question 

 which should be put, and we have history to show us that, although 

 Charles Ceiling's Hubback, the grandsire of Comet, was picked up 

 in a lane in England, and Godolphin Arabian, the maternal grand>- 

 sire of Eclipse, was purchased -irom the owner of a water-cart in 

 France, they possessed qualities which at once placed them at the 

 fountain-head of Shorthorn cattle and racehorse breeds respectively. 

 With the racehorse, we are told, that Captain Byerly and a Mr. Dar- 

 ley each introduced into England an Arabian horse which have since 

 been recognised as the Byerly Arabian, and the Darley Arabian. 

 Later on we read of Flying Childers, 1715; the Godolphin Arabian 

 in 1724; and their Waxy, foaled in 1790. Some writers prefer to 

 use the expression Byerly-Turk when referring to Captain Byerly's 

 importation, as that animal was purchased in Turkey. If this, 

 however, means that the English racehorse was originally cross- 

 bred, it only goes to prove what can be done in a short space of 

 time w r ith crossbrecls when intelligently mated. Horse-breeders 

 say: Breeding for the turf is exceedingly common, and may be 

 shortly stated as follows: First, in-breeding, as the foundation; 

 second, out-crossing from inbred blood; third, returning to the same 

 strain after an outcross; and then several processes naturally 'follow 

 one another. By in-breeding, is meant a reunion, once, twice, 01 

 oftener, of strains of the same blood, separated, as a rule, by( not 

 more than four steps of generations; but there are cases in which 

 greater distances have proved successful. 



So convinced was an old turf writer on the origin of the English 

 racehorse being produced in the manner named, that he declared 

 that all great racehorses are combination of Herod and Eclipse 

 blood. Another writer, in a later period, stated that all good 

 horses were a mixture of the blood of W T axy, Buzzard, and Orville. 

 Yet we are told that Mr. John Lee, of Bylong, once said: "When 

 buying thoroughbred stock, I do not care how they ate bredv so 

 long as they please me." But. of course these statements do not 

 prove that all horses possessing certain strains of blood are good, 

 or that all horses that pleased the best breeder's eyes were !2'ood 

 either. Far. far from it. These statements only go to show that 

 the Byerly-Turk. or Arabian, the Barley-Arabian, the Godolphin- 

 Arabian, and the Persian Gulf-Arabian, or Barbs, seem to have eaten 

 up each other until the English racehorse was produced and per- 

 fected. Tl t certainly required men with money and brains to brino: 

 about this great blend. However, it was done, and our present- 

 day blood horses are the result. The breeding o.f the dairy cow 

 ought to be on similar lines. In fact, it was originally done by 

 that prince of breeders, Bakewell, who bred the celebrated long- 



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