NEV/ YOilK, SEPTEMBER 29, 1893. 



THE MUTUAL EELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND 

 STOCK BREEDING.* 



BY WM. H. BREWER, NEW HAVEN, CONN. 



The production of crops <and the production of animals 

 are the two great branches of agriculture. The applica- 

 tion of science to the production of crops has been more 

 conspicuously before the public than to the j)roduction of 

 animals, and agricultural science has devoted most atten- 

 tion to this branch of production. There could be no 

 comprehensive science of agriculture until there was a 

 science of chemistry, and the modern revolution in the 

 art and practice of agriculture has come about as the 

 science of chemistry advanced and mechanical invention 

 progressed. 



The application of scientific methods to the economic 

 breeding of farm animals came much later and followed 

 the publication of Darwin's " Origin of Species." Facts 

 began to be systematically recorded for the construction 

 of a science of breeding much earlier than that, but a col- 

 lection of facts does not constitute a science, and breed- 

 ing remained strictly an art until within the last few 

 years. 



As an art breeding attained a high standard long ago as 

 respects the production of some fine examples of particu- 

 lar breeds. But except with Arabian horses, and possibly 

 certain strains of game-fowls which were bred nearly 

 pure, crossing was the universal method of improvement 

 practised in all countries of European civilization. This 

 led to wide variation and great uncertainty of product. 

 The modern method of improvement within the breed, 

 keeping the blood pure, has been the outcome of scientific 

 study applied to the economic production of animals. 



This knowledge was of slow growth and the f)ractice 

 was applied to the breeding of English race horses before 

 it was to useful farm animals. The English race horse, 

 or " Thoroughbred," is of composite origin, but originally 

 mostly of Oriental stock. The pedigrees of the winners 

 began to be printed before the middle of the last century, 

 and after a time an annual list of the winning sires was 

 published. It came to be recognized that the winners 

 were, as a rule, of the purest blood, rather than crosses, 

 and this led to improvement by selection within the breed 

 itself rather than by crossing. Then pedigrees were gath- 

 ered and collated and the first volume of the " Stud Book " 

 was published in 1791. This gave the data necessary for 

 a study of the ancestry of any given animal of that breed, 

 but the method was not extended to the breeding of the 

 other useful farm animals until long after, and more than 

 thirty years elapsed before any other comprehensive reg- 

 istry of pedigrees was printed for public use. The "Short- 

 horn Herd Book " was published in 1822. 



The forerunner of breeding by pedigree as now prac- 

 tised was breeding in-and-in, which came into use for 

 farm animals the last quarter of the last century. This 



♦Synopsis of Address by Wm. H. Brewer, Vice President of Section I., 

 Auierican Association for the Advancement of Science, at Madison, Wiscon- 

 sin, Any. 17, 1S93. 



was the opposite extreme of the wide crossing, so widely 

 practised, and Robert Bakewell was its greatest promotor. 

 Beginning with a very few carefully selected animals, he 

 grew his flocks and herds from them, breeding between 

 the nearest of kin and thus restricting the ancestry as to 

 numbers, but increasing enormously the potentiality and 

 hereditary influence of certain superior animals. He prac- 

 tised with great skill and selected his breeding animals 

 with rare sagacity. He wrought great improvement, re- 

 fining the carcass, improving the form, and extending the 

 change to early maturity, better quality of flesh and gen- 

 eral improvement in useful qualities of the animals. He 

 wrote nothing. Breeding was with him a secret art, prac- 

 tised with great skill and success. This art was, however, 

 taught to certain of his pupils, of which the brothers Coll- 

 ing became famous as breeders of shorthorns. But there 

 was no science recognized because the general laws were 

 not understood. Even Colling introduced a cross into his 

 herd, and breeders are still, after nearly a century, dis- 

 cussing the influence of that " Galloway cross " on the 

 breed. 



Most of the leading breeds of our farm animals existed 

 after a fashion in the last century. The early history of 

 nearly all of them is obscure, although much research has 

 been expended in unraveling it. But, unless confined to 

 some small island, as were the Jersey, Alderney and 

 Guernsey cattle, the breeds were not kept pure, because 

 the common method of improvement was by crossing with 

 other blood. Uniformity could neither be secured nor 

 maintained by such practice, and naturally all the eco- 

 nomic results were highly uncertain. 



Some animals of great excellence were produced, but 

 they were the accidental result of the uncontrolled and 

 uncontrollable variation incident to the methods of breed- 

 ing then followed. 



The twenty-five years during which Darwin was accu- 

 mulating the material and digesting the facts for his 

 " Origin of Species," were important ones in the history of 

 the theory of breeding, and a number of pedigree records 

 were begun publication. The doctrine of improvement 

 by selection within the breed instead of crossing with 

 other blood was becoming better and better known by the 

 more successful breeders, and the economic results were 

 becoming more and more certain. 



But scientific naturalists, absorbed in the description of 

 natural sj)ecies, ignored man's artificial jiroductions. A 

 breed may be, and often is, as artificial a production as is 

 a picture or a statue. The breeder, like the sculptor, 

 must have his ideal towards which he is working, the 

 greater his genius the nearer his creations come to reach- 

 ing his ideal. The earlier naturalists, like Buff on and 

 Cuvier, had studied and w^ritten about domestic animals as 

 a part of nature, but their successors came to consider 

 them artistic rather than natural productions, and to look 

 upon these " artificial monstrosities " with a contempt not 

 now- appreciated by the younger generation of naturalists. 

 But the difiiculties of the old system were well nigh 

 crushing the life out of natural history, and the time was 

 ripe for a new theory on the origin and nature of species. 



