The Improvement of the Flock 157 



own rams owe their disaster to the fact that the 

 reliance was placed upon kinship of blood rather 

 than upon kinship of excellence without defect. 

 No matter what progress be made in fixing good 

 qualities of fleece and form, it can avail nothing if 

 in the same animals there was concentrated a tend- 

 ency to low vigor or low fecundity. The advantage 

 of line-breeding lies in the fact that the animals 

 mated are some distance removed from the common 

 sire, and opportunity is allowed to select individuals 

 having the valuable qualities it is desired to preserve 

 and yet are free from the weaknesses of the strain. 

 So it appears that the question resolves itself into 

 a matter of not losing sight of individuality and 

 considering ancestry at more than its real value. 

 The old rule of "the best to the best" still holds 

 good. So long as one can obtain a ram from outside 

 his own flock that is better calculated by indi- 

 viduality and parentage to bring about the improve- 

 ment desired, he should do so, and no longer. This 

 assumes that the breeder is as fair and impartial in 

 judging his own stock as in judging that of others. 

 Such ability is the exception rather than the rule. 

 If upon examination of the pedigree of a ram 

 that is individually satisfactory and from approved 

 parents, it should develop that a grandparent or 

 more remote ancestor is one that also appears in the 

 pedigree of the ewes for which the ram is intended, 

 then the existence of such relationship is desirable 



