BREEDING AND SELECTION 29 
played an important part in the improvement of practically 
all breeds of live stock. It concentrates the blood and makes 
animals more prepotent,—that is to say, causes them to trans- 
mit their own qualities to their progeny with great certainty. 
In this respect, therefore, in-breeding is beneficial; but it must 
not be forgotten that it will fix bad qualities as well as good 
ones. Mr, Gentry strikes the keynote when he says: “I be- 
lieve there is little or nothing to fear from kinship of animals 
mated if they are suited to be mated together.” But how 
many men are capable of discerning whether the animals are 
suited to one another or not? Mr. Gentry states that if the 
animals are bad, a person will go wrong very fast by practising 
in-breeding. The chances are that more than ninety-nine per 
cent of the men breeding swine to-day could not say with 
any degree of certainty whether a given pair of animals were 
suited to be mated together, and since bad results are likely to 
follow an error in judgment, it seems safe to assume that 
in-breeding is something to be practised by the few only. 
It requires a master of the art of breeding to practise in- 
breeding with success, and in the history of stock breeding we 
read of some of the greatest breeders the world has known 
who were compelled to resort to the introduction of fresh blood 
after persistently following in-breeding for a considerable time. 
Avoid In-breeding.—It will be safer, therefore, for the 
average breeder to avoid in-breeding, and to leave the practice 
in the hands of those who are exceptionally skilful in the art 
of breeding. If a breeder happened to secure a boar of ex- 
ceptional excellence as a stock getter, he might find it to his 
advantage to do a certain amount of close breeding, but boars 
of this description are not numerous, and it is seldom that we 
are fortunate enough to secure one. Mr. Gentry secured such 
a boar in Longfellow, and recognized the boar’s merit, but 
