118 



GOOD FKOM CROSSING. 



Chap. XVII 



quoted ; yet Youatt says 3 the breed " had acquired a delicacy of consti- 

 tution inconsistent with common management," and " the propagation of 

 the species was not always certain." But the Shorthorns offer the most 

 striking case of close interbreeding; for instance, the famous bull 

 Favourite (who was himself the offspring of a half-brother and sister from 

 Foljambe) was matched with his own daughter, granddaughter, and 

 great-granddaughter; so that the produce of this last union, or the 

 great-great-granddaughter, had 15-16ths, or 93*75 per cent, of the blood 

 of Favourite in her veins. This cow was matched with the bull Well- 

 ington, having 62'5 per cent, of Favourite blood in his veins, and pro- 

 duced Clarissa; Clarissa was matched with the bull Lancaster, having 

 68*75 of the same blood, and she yielded valuable offspring. 4 Nevertheless 

 Collings, who reared these animals, and was a strong advocate for close 

 breeding, once crossed his stock with a Galloway, and the cows from this 

 cross realised the highest prices. Bates's herd was esteemed the most cele- 

 brated in the world. For thirteen years he bred most closely in and in ; 

 but during the next seventeen years, though he had the most exalted 

 notion of the value of his own stock, he thrice infused fresh blood into his 

 herd : it is said that he did this, not to improve the form of his animals, 

 but on account of their lessened fertility. Mr. Bates's own view, as given 

 by a celebrated breeder, 5 was, that " to breed in and in from a bad stock 

 was ruin and devastation ; yet that the practice may be safely followed 

 Within certain limits when the parents so related are descended from first- 

 rate animals." We thus see that there has been extremely close inter- 

 breeding with Shorthorns ; but Nathusius, after the most careful study 

 of their pedigrees, says that he can find no instance of a breeder who has 

 strictly followed this practice during his whole life. From this study and 

 his own experience, he concludes that close interbreeding is necessary 



to ennoble the stock; but that in effecting this the greatest care is 



necessary, on account of- the tendency to infertility and weakness. It 

 may be added, that another high authority 6 asserts that many more calves 



are born cripples from Shorthorns than from other and less closely inter- 

 bred races of cattle. 



battle) 



( 



with cattle, yet the good effects of a cross between almost any two breeds 

 is at once shown by the greater size and vigour of the offspring; as 

 Mr. Spooner writes to me, " crossing distinct breeds certainly improves 

 cattle for the butcher." Such crossed animals are of course of no value to 

 the breeder; but they have been raised during many years in several 



Australia, 1865. 



5 n/r. Willoughby Wood 



i 



Gar- 



3 * Cattle,' p. 199. 



4 Nathusius, ' Ueber Shorthorn Rind- 

 vieh,' 1857, s. 71 : see also ' Gardener's dener's Chronicfe,' "l855, p. 411 ; and 

 Chronicle,' 1860, p. 270. Many analo- 1860, p. 270. See the very clear tables 

 gous cases are given in a pamphlet re- 

 cently published by Mr. C. Macknight 

 and Dr. H. Madden, * On the True 



and pedigrees given 

 * Rindvieh,' s. 72-77. 



in Nathusius' 



i 



Journal of Royal 

 Principles of Breeding ; ' Melbourne, Agricult. Soc.,' vol. vii., 1816, p. 204. 



Mr. Wright, 



) 



