LINE BREEDING AND MENDEL'S LAW 195 



ing to the Mendelian law, with excellent results. The 

 polled character in cattle has been found dominant to 

 the horned characteristic. Thus is offered a painless 

 method of " dehorning." Mr. Punnett says : " Man, too, 

 is subject to those same laws of heredity that govern the 

 transmission of characters in plants and in other ani- 

 mals." I mention this here in the hope that it may 

 help to stimulate any reader who may find the law not 

 clear, to make special effort to grasp and understand it. 

 A law of breeding that touches all the plant and animal 

 kingdom gives man a grasp of all breeding problems 

 which makes him almost a divine Creator. 



Although I have not seen it so stated, it looks to me, 

 on examination of the illustrations given, that dominance 

 usually belongs to the characteristic longest fixed in the 

 subjects. We might perhaps expect that this would be 

 true. The use of this law is limited by the stated fact 

 that not all characteristics come under its working. 

 Those which do are first sought. When found, says 

 Punnett : " Knowledge of the Mendelian principles will 

 enable him [the experimenter] to combine them together 

 according to his will, and to build up and fix a plant or 

 animal having the properties which he considers most to 

 be desired." 



All this is pertinent to the Beginner in a point where 

 he often runs amuck ; and this, even though he do not 

 understand the working of the law. It is said that a 

 cross between certain strains of white fowls known to 

 breed true, results in the production of birds entirely 

 colored and very like the original ancestor of all, the 

 black-red fowl. Probably there are few poultry raisers 

 who have not, when in the novice stage, gone to some 



