46 
The Value of Pedigree. 
the time when blood alone was thought of, and even the mixing 
of different strains or families was regarded almost as a crime. 
The resultant in-and-in breeding without discrimination led 
quickly, it may be feared, to the deterioration of the animal, 
and to what is almost worse, constitutional and hereditary 
disease, the effects of which have been sorely felt. Tuberculosis 
in its several forms, tumours, scrofula, &c., have invaded very 
many herds, both of pure and not ^Dure-bred cattle, and these 
diseases certainly have increased in the last few years. This 
may be in some measure, and perhaps to a very large extent, 
attributed to in-and-in breeding. Such breeding certainly tends 
greatly in the direction of sterility, as is evidenced by several 
of the highest bred strains of blood having almost died out, 
but when crossed again with alien or nearly alien, but still pure 
blood, have been resuscitated. 
Abortion has often been attributed to in-and-in breeding, 
and some say that pure-bred animals are the more liable to it. 
Of this I am not at all certain, for abortion is one of those 
phenomena not j^et understood or explained. Our highest 
veterinary science is still at fault when asked to account, or 
find out a remedy, for it, and its attacks are as fierce and 
frequent in half-bred as in pure-bred herds. There may be 
other diseases which in-and-in breeding will develop more 
rapidly than in cross-bred herds, and “ wasters ” may be seen 
in larger numbers in the pure-bred than amongst the cross- 
bred animals, although there are enormous numbers of wasters 
in poor dairy herds, badly kept and half-starving. All the 
trouble emanates from much the same source in both — the 
want of robustness, which, as I have shown, can be rapidly 
induced by in-and-in breeding. 
To the section of the subject we are now considering, Mr. 
Peter conti-ibuted some interesting remarks in the course of the 
discussion. He questioned whether pedigree-breeding and stud- 
and herd-books have done our cattle very much good, and he 
doubts whether they have the same robustness of constitution as 
they had years ago. He is afraid that a bt of our pedigree animals, 
from the way they are bred, have almost done more harm than 
good. He thinks Shorthorn breeders should not breed from 
the herd-book, but from selection, getting the best and most 
robust cattle and breeding them togetl.er, as Bates did. Of 
course, at the time of the boom we could not afford to go in for 
a cross, because the Americans came over, some of them not 
knowing a Shorthorn from a Gloucester, and bought animals 
simply because their pedigrees looked well on paper. English 
breeders received their thousands for these long pedigrees, and 
