PEDIGREES AND THEIR VALUE 39 



stock originated. If an animal is not pure-bred, it may 

 combine in its pedigree widely differing blood lines that are 

 more or less out of harmony with one another. 



A cross-bred animal has a sire of one breed, and a dam 

 of another. As a rule, cross-breeding is very undesirable, 

 and should be carried only one generaticjn, and then for the 

 production of feeding-stock only. Some lines of cross-bi-eed- 

 ing, however, have been popular for many years. In Scot- 

 land what are known as blue-grays, famous for the Cjuality 

 of their beef, are crosses of white Shorthorns with black 

 Galloways or Aberdeen-Angus. Another noted example of 

 crossing breeds in Scotland is the mating of Border Leicester 

 rams on Cheviot ewes, producing remarka};ly fine mutton. 

 These two crosses are for meat production only, and extend 

 but one generation. 



A grade animal, in the large majority of cases, has a pure- 

 bred sire, l)ut is out of a dam that is not pure-bred. One 

 often hears the expression high grade, which means that the 

 animal referred to is by a pure-bred sire, and out of a dam 

 that contains much pure blood stock. A high grade herd of 

 Herefords would consist of a collection of animals that 

 started with just common or scrub breeding stock, but in 

 which for some generations none but pure-bred males were 

 used as sires. Thus a systematic improvement of the herd 

 would be made. The degree of improvement may be ex- 

 pressed as follows: 



Thus it can be seen that in time a herd may become practi- 

 cally pure-bred, although one will not be able to register this 

 high-grade stock in standard American breed registry asso- 

 ciations. Yet all pedigrees really start from grade ancestry. 



