CKOSSING WITHOUT AN OBJECT. 131 



a vague hope that some improvement of a character which 

 cannot be anticipated may result from it, is the height of folly 

 and ■weakness. Even uniform mediocrity is far preferable to 

 mediocrity without uniformity ; and he who has the former 

 should not break it up by crossing, without having a definite 

 purpose, a definite plan for attaining that purpose, and enough 

 knowledge and experience on the subject to afibrd a decent 

 prospect of success. It is always safer and better in seeking 

 any improvement, to adhere strictly to the same breed and 

 family, if that family contains within itself all the requisite 

 elements of the desired improvement, or as good ones as can 

 be found elsewhere. The most splendid successes, among all 

 classes of domestic animals have been won in this way.* 

 Successful crossing generally requires as much skill as success- 

 ful in-and-in breeding. And as it is vastly more common, so 

 vastly more flocks in this country have been impaired in 

 value by it, or at least hindered from making any important 

 and permanent improvement. They are not permitted to 

 become established in any improvement, before it is upset by 

 a new cross ; and these rapid crosses finally so destroy the 

 family character of the flock — infuse into it so many family 

 and individual strains of blood to be bred back to — that it 

 sometimes becomes a mere medley which has lost the benefit 

 that Mood confers — viz., family likeness and the power to 

 transmit family likeness to posterity. 



Every breeder or flookmaster should, after due observation 

 and reflection, fix upon a standard for his flock — a standard 



* The English race-horse and the Short-Homed family of cattle are both frequently 

 cited as Instances of choice breeds originating from a mixed origm. In regard to the 

 origin of the race-horse, the weight of proof and intelligent opinion is the other way. 

 In regard to that of the Short-Horn, the matter is involved in mnch doubt. (Those 

 who wish to see the facts on both sides of the question stated, will find them in 

 Stevens' edition of Touatt and Martin on Cattle 1851.) But conceding, for the sake 

 of the argument, that both breeds were originally the result of crosses, can any one 

 show that they owed such merit as they first possessed to the cross ? And have either 

 of them been vm'proved up to their present matchless character, by the aid of any new 

 crosses f Mr. Youatt says ; — " In the descent of almost every modern racer, not the 

 slightest flaw can be discovered ; or when, with the splendid exception of Sampson 

 and Bay Malton, one drop of common blood has mingled with the pure stream, it has 

 been immediately detected in the inferiority of form, and deficiency of bottom, and it 

 has required two or three generations to wipe away the stain and get rid of its conse- 

 quences." The Short-Horns have been bred pure, with an equally jealous exclusive- 

 ness ; and no breeder of them would admit a cross in his pedigrees sooner than he 

 would a bar-sinister on his family escutcheon, except in the single case of the 

 descendents of a polled Galloway cow, to which Charles Colling resorted for a cross 

 with some of his Short-Horns. He took but a single cross and bred back ever after to 

 the Short-Horns, so that there is not probably a thousandth, or perhaps five thousandth 

 part of the blood of that Galloway cow in any of the AMoy (as the descendants of 

 the cross are called,) now living. Tet the English breeders think one of the Alloy 

 can now be distinguished from a pure Short Jlom, by its appearance I This cross 

 once enjoyed — perhaps was written into — great popularity; but its reputation has 

 waned; and there are many leading breeders in England who would not on any 

 consideration have a valuable cow bulled by the best aire of the family. 



