Thirty-fourth Annual Convention. "^1 



they say is *'like begetting- like," now this sire suits me finely 

 and they say that he will beget like. No not always. That 

 definition of breeding is but half of the truth and half a truth 

 is as bad as a lie. The whole truth is that in breeding ''like 

 begets like or the likeness of some ancestor." That is where the 

 trouble comes in. Reversion comes in with all stock, and you 

 can now see why I lay so much stress on these things which are 

 so essential to right breeding. 



We cannot at this time expect to get everything, but I want 

 to get from that sire pretty near what I find in him and added to 

 that to be aided by those dams of great performance and helped 

 also by his sires that have been properly bred. I am willing now 

 to take the law of breeding as I have given it; if he begets like 

 himself it is all right and if he goes back to his ancestors by 

 reversion it is still all right. I have had men send me a paper 

 pedigree and wanted to know what I thought about the animal. 

 A paper pedigree only will help a man to guess. 



A few years ago I started out of the postoffice in Minne- 

 apolis. It is rather unusual for a man to holler across the 

 street in the city, but somebody cried out, ''Hello, O. C, how are 

 you?" I recognized the voice and it was one of my old friends 

 so I went across the way. "Well," he said, "O. C, I thought I 

 knew you, I knew your gait." I have been walking for sixty 

 years and I suppose I have walked so long in one way. that I have 

 a gait that belongs to O. C, that fixedness of gait has come by 

 repetition. If I had a blackboard here while I am talking I 

 would write my name and you could hand it to a certain cashier 

 in Minneapolis and the cashier would say, "That is Gregg's sig- 

 nature.' I have repeated it and repeated it until it is always the 

 same. The same law applies to breeding. We have been repeat- 

 ing, repeating, repeating the good qualities until we get them here 

 on both sides and behind us which is so important. Now by the 

 law of repetition of a chosen type I have the power to transmit 

 the things that I want. 



The Weakness in Breeding from a Grade Bull. 



When you talk about a grade bull you have to cut off 

 one-half of that power and by reversion you are liable to go 

 back to what you don't want, and the danger is strong because 

 the tendency on the part of the animal life and all kind of life is 

 to revert to the original type. The dairy animal is an artificial 



