THE CROSSING, AC, OF CATTLE, ET AL. 313 



ing, is not, that he subordinates the health and fertility 

 of the animal or plant, to the special object in view ; 

 but that he ignorantly reduces and suppresses parts, in 

 the organisms, and suffers them to remain reduced or 

 suppressed, when no purpose of his is to be subserved 

 thereby ; and, when the ends he aims at, are thereby 

 eventually defeated, and toil and trouble occasioned 

 him, by the lessened fertility, the sterility, and deli- 

 cacy of constitution which, after all he has done to 

 provoke them, appear so mysterious to him. The 

 same remark is applicable to the extreme development 

 of the udders, in cattle : Let man but see that points in 

 the structure of the animals, are developed, which it 

 is now a matter of indifference to breeders, whether 

 they are developed or not; and he will find no 

 material obstacle in the effect on the fertility and vigor, 

 produced by such undue development of the udders. 

 Not only does Man, in his breeding of Cattle and of 

 Sheep, produce the evil results of close interbreeding, 

 by carrying a special excellence to excess, and by con- 

 tinuing the false proportion, of characters, which ex- 

 isted when such special excellence was assigned as the 

 peculiarity of a breed ; but he also, from misguided 

 policy, reduces some characters which, he fancies, are 

 in no wise profitable to him. How far profitable, they 

 may be, to the animal, he never stops to consider. 

 He considers a little, when the results of interbreeding 

 occur to vex him ; but, so blinded is he, and so im- 

 bued with the idea, that all organisms were assigned to 

 his care, to mould, as he lists, that this element, — the 

 reduction of which he has effected, — never enters into 

 27* 



