196 AMERICAN CATTLE. 



dam. Uniform perfection or excellence, or the highest quality 

 in appearance cannot always be expected in the produce of even 

 2,a almost perfect sire and dam. Every now and then, in the 

 finest herds there will come out a creature of inferior appear- 

 ance, decidedly lacking some prominent good point possessed by 

 both parents, or one of them. Yet, even this inferior production, 

 having the good hlood of his parents — constitution, health, and 

 all eise being right — may prove as good a sire or dam as the 

 very best of their superior relatives. We have known frequent 

 instances of the kind, and may be excused for relating one with 

 which we were for some time familiar. Some years ago, we 

 knew a bull calf, which was selected from a pure bred herd in 

 England, long established, and bred with a special care to retain 

 their purity of blood and general good qualities. He was a 

 good calf, possessing many of the strong and well defined points 

 of his race ; but after his arrival in America, although healthy, 

 vigorous and well cared forj he grew up an ordinary, and every 

 way — for his breed — an inferior looking beast. Yet his stock 

 proved remarkably fine, even from inferior and coarse cows of 

 his own breed. It was not known that he ever got a calf bat 

 what was really superior, in appearance, and showing the prom- 

 inent excellencies of the herd from which he sprung. Yet 

 nobody liked the bull, and his importer, after keeping him two 

 or three years, sold him at a low price. His new owner, appre- 

 ciating the value of the hlood of the bull, removed him to his 

 own herd, which was rather miscellaneously composed of several 

 very good, and some only middling, yet all, purely bred cows. 

 He bred the bull to those cows for several years. The improve- 

 ment he made in their produce, of even the best of the cows, 

 was wonderful — ^better, indeed, than the produce of bulls of the 

 highest appearance and reputation in some other herds — althougli 

 no one of common observation would think him, judging by 

 appearance, worth much, comparatively. His stock sold for high 



