SELECTION FOE STOCK PRODUCING. 71 



CHAPTER XII 



SELECTION FOR STOCK PRODUCING. 



Culture, farming, rearing, and raising are synonymous terms when 

 applied to any of the members of the vegetable or animal kingdom 

 that are under the fostering care or guiding hand of man. Our 

 chief aim in these matters is the selection of the fittest that may 

 become in one way or the other useful to us. There is no culturist 

 under so great a disadvantage, as it regards the selection of the 

 fittest, as the bee-keeper. Those interested in the culture of mem- 

 bers of the animal kingdom other than bees, can select and mate 

 both sire and dam with a reasonable probability of producing a 

 certain ideal or development of an animal more akin to man's 

 requirements than those that were the parentage of the said pro- 

 duction. So with the vegetable kingdom. The knowledge we 

 have, and the power we possess as it regards cross-fertilisation, 

 has put such a lever in our hands, that, after having conceived the 

 idea of what may be an improvement either in colour, form, 

 flavour, or bulk, something near thereto is the result. I know that 

 the percentage of failures are far greater than the successes, but 

 from these we select the fittest, and these survive. In these mat- 

 ters the bee-keeper is under one great and lasting hindrance to his 

 success, he cannot select and mate both sire and dam. With hinv 

 there is no reasonable probability of achieving an ideal type of bee 

 that may suit his fancy. Neither can the bee-keeper ever hope 

 to have the power in his hands to regulate the mating of his stock, 

 so as to change the character of the wild type, either in form or 

 size. Freaks in these matters undoubtedly have occurred that, 

 according to our way of thinking, have produced a bee an improve- 

 ment on her ancestors. There have been cases of albinos ; but 

 even supposing that these cases were more numerous, and still 

 supposing that albino bees would be an improvement on their 

 more sombre brethren, a new variety could not be worked up there- 

 from, because the cases have alwaysi occurred among drones and 

 infertile females (workers), and not fertile females (queens). Again, 

 we occasionally see working-bees extra long in the abdomen ; that 

 length not being produced by the surcharged honey sac, and, 

 indeed, some queens seem disposed to produce inmates of two or 



