The Value of Pedigree. 
45 
Suppose, moreover, anything suddenly happens to either man, 
there must arise such confusion as to the lambs or young pigs 
that they could not be entered correctly. Take the Goodwood 
flock of (for the last sixty or seventy years) pure bred South- 
downs, some 1,000 in number. It would take more than 
a clerk could do, going from shepherd to shepherd, to keep any 
list, and even then it might not be correct. That a list of 
rams and boars used, with the names of the breeders, should 
and could be kept, I admit, and would certainly advocate, but 
further than that I am not prepared to go, knowing well the 
impossibility of guaranteeing complete accuracy by any flock- 
master or pig-breeder. 
Let us now inquire into the disadvantages that may accrue 
from close clinging to pure blood. This, I feel, is the more 
difficult part of my task, and, being neither a scientist nor a 
veterinarian, I cannot enter upon it with any authority, but 
can only give my own opinion. This may be taken for what 
it is worth, and, in any case, is likely to be warmly criticised. 
We know that with wild animals of all sorts, in all parts of the 
world, as well as with herds of deer, and in two instances with 
cattle even in this country, the survival of the fittest asserts 
itself. Hence, in-and-in breeding in no way deteriorates 
animals either in form or any other properties, not even in milk. 
We have an example of this in the case of the wild white cattle 
of Chillingham, and I know a herd of fallow deer in quite a 
small park in Lancashire where I am assured no change of 
blood has been infused for several generations ; yet the deer are 
not only some of the finest I have ever seen, but keep their 
peculiar character and colour, the latter menel, in a marked 
degree. 
The case is altogether difierent with domesticated animals, 
of which man chooses those he thinks are the fittest for his 
purpose, and then keeps them in a domesticated or semi- 
domesticated state. It is to our interest, therefore, that in 
selecting the fittest they should be well chosen, and that care 
be taken to pick the strong, robust, best-shaped animal from 
the strongest, largest, most robust, and best-shaped parents. I 
am afraid that this precaution was not always thought of, and for 
a time, at all events, there was but little discrimination used as 
to mating cows and bulls, so long as they were of the best pure 
blood attainable. This did not apply to those who first took 
up the breeding of pure-bred Shorthorns — they acted with 
much discrimination — but soon, in the race to obtain pure 
blood, and afterwards, when the value of it increased so enor- 
mously, careful consideration was cast to the winds. Then camp 
