ON BREEDING. 201 



fact of that improvement being made, and to what extent, by a 

 course of breeding from close relationship in blood with each 

 other. The practice — as it certainly has been the practice — 

 probably originated from the selection of animals possessing 

 certain superior and desirable qualities, and after breeding them 

 together, their produce being found to possess the combined 

 good qualities of both parents, in an improved degree, the 

 breeders, with a view of fixing and concentrating those good 

 points still more strongly in the blood and constitution of their 

 animals, bred the sire to his daughter, the sons and daughters 

 with each other, sons to mothers, and any, and all sorts of rela- 

 tionship which, among humanity, would be considered the most 

 incestuous. Yet this practice, among their dumb animals, proved 

 eminently successful. They thus obtained stock of certain and 

 positive qualities of excellence, which, among each other, or 

 when bred upon stock of other famihes or tribes, would stamp 

 their own character upon them, with a certainty and strength 

 that could be reached by no kind of miscellaneous breeding 

 whatever. 



This mode of breeding, to obtain certain results, has been 

 practiced with all domestic animals — among quadrupeds, from 

 the horse down to the rabbit — and with the feathered tribes, 

 through all their varieties, from the swan to the canary bird. 

 Such is the fact; and in support of it, numerous mstances might 

 be named, in breeding other animals than cattle, which are not 

 now necessary to notice, as we state the principle on which the 

 practice has been adopted, and the successful results which have 

 followed it. The subject will bear some discussion. 



A prejudice, to a considerable extent, exists in the popular 

 mind against blood relation in breeding animals of any variety, 

 and they indulge it in regard to the lower orders of Crea- 

 tion as they do to mankind. So far as the prejudice relates 

 to humanity, it is mainly derived from Divine authority, as a 



