ON BREEDING.— NO. 1. 
175 
tails, and does not result from accident nor hapha- 
zard. 
The writer does not mean to assert, that the 
breed of animals, in this country, has not very 
much improved within the last twenty years; on 
the contrary, the improvement has been marked. 
The old-fashioned, ragged, rawboned, half-starved, 
angry and withered-looking beast, which seemed 
as if its early life had been suckled on hail stones, 
and in its prime fed on weeds, has given way, in 
many places, to the large, full, and fat Durham, 
or some of its crosses. Every day may be seen, 
on some of the roads leading to this city, from the 
west, handsome specimens of animals raised in 
Kentucky, Illinois, and even Missouri ; some with 
the appearance of having been crossed with the 
shorthorns, and others with no indication of any 
other descent than that their sire was a hull and 
their dam a cow. But this improvement is not the 
result of what is proper!}* called and known as 
breeding. It is rather crossing, or the producing 
of a fine animal of some particular breed, with an 
inferior animal of no breed known nor acknowledged 
among agriculturists. 
Breeding, if I understand the word rightly, is the 
preservation of a breed already formed, as is now 
done in England with the shorthorns; or else to 
create, as was done by Colling and Bakewell, from 
the materials that lay about us, a breed, whose 
beauty and whose utility shall be the admiration 
of every one. To do this, requires far higher quali- 
fications than the mere crossing. It exacts a per- 
fect knowledge of what are the fine points of an 
animal. It requires a nice discrimination of those 
points, existing as they must, at the first, among 
the ordinary and imperfect animals that he has at 
hand, and which form his materials, and the ele- 
ments of his process. The difficulty of discover- 
ing these points, is, no doubt, considerable ; the 
difficulty of adapting and adjusting and uniting 
them, so as to bring about the end in view, is 
equally great. When I consider this, I cannot 
help according to such men my highest admiration. 
The British can refer with praise, and look with 
pride and triumph on the genius of their country, 
their poets and philosophers, who have ennobled 
the name, and made glorious the history, of Eng- 
land. 
In New England, and in those parts of our 
country where her people have gone, may 
be seen a stock of red cattle, no doubt de- 
scended from the English Devons. [?] They are, in 
many parts, very inferior animals; but that they 
are capable of being improved, and made equal to 
any cattle, is made sufficiently clear. At some of 
the exhibitions in Massachusetts and Connecti- 
cut, the size and quality of the animals to be seen 
there, give clear indications of what might be done 
by more care and a better judgment; but where 
capital and industry are superseded by poverty and 
negligence, or by a spirit of parsimony, more ruin- 
ous than either, it is not to be supposed excellence 
can be reached nor even approached. Ignorance 
and indolence have no right to assume that they 
can rival enterprize, activity, and talent; and it is 
not possible to form a fine breed of animals, nor to 
preserve one, without the union of these qualities. 
An American breeder has, in fact, far better op- 
portunities for succeeding in his undertaking, than 
either of the distinguished Englishmen I have men- 
tioned. He has no difficulty in selecting. He is 
not confused and perplexed by a variety of different 
breeds. He will, at each step, mark the success 
of his proceeding; and even, after one or two 
crosses, be in doubt as to what should be done 
next. He has the best of the British breeds within 
his reach ; and has nothing more to do than to keep 
them at the high standard at which he finds them, 
and to engage in the patriotic purpose of regene- 
rating the native breed of his country. 
The great principles of breeding are now so well 
known, as to be accessible to every one. It 
would be inexcusable, even in an inexperienced 
person, to be ignorant of these; and he, certainly, 
must know them before he begins his enterprise, or 
ill-success, at the start, will probably depress and 
dispirit, and perhaps force him, in despair, to give 
up all further exertion. It must neither be sup- 
posed that he has undertaken a matter of simple 
and easy attainment. He can, no doubt, bring 
males and females also together, and have any 
number of young; but of what use will they be 
while alive ? and of what value, when dead ? 
These are things of far more importance than the 
mere procreation of the animal; and in those two 
questions is involved all, or nearly all, that belongs 
to breeding as an art. 
The first great principle is obvious to every stu- 
dent of nature — it is, that " like produces like." 
But there is a difficulty in acting on this seemingly 
simple rule, that includes the chief danger, and 
most serious obstacle, in this pursuit, and which 
makes absolutely necessary those high and not 
very common qualifications — judgment, penetration, 
observation, and experience. These constitute the 
genius of the breeder — the intellectual capital with 
which he is to work — the powers with which he 
is to create and reproduce something new. There 
is in this principle, of "like producing like," as 
much evil to be avoided, as there is good to be at- 
tained. Disease, defects, or deformity can be inherit- 
ed and perpetuated, as easily as strength, symme- 
try, or beauty. Life itself is but a continued in- 
heritance. Every creature that is born, brings into 
the world something that belonged to an immediate 
or a remote ancestor ; some peculiarity that allies 
it with its own particular family, besides that which 
it has in common with its race. Scrofula, insanity, 
and gout are, in the human family, as sure and as 
lasting entails, as lands or houses. Among brutes 
it is the same. Neither time nor successive gene- 
rations will eradicate ill temper, faults of form, de- 
fects of constitution, nor other natural peculiarities ; 
it can only be done by a proper selection of ani- 
mals the most free from these infirmities. The 
system of breeding " in-and-in," is ruinous, chiefly 
from this perpetuating defect. To a certain extent, 
it may be adopted, until every animal produced has 
become entirely similar in form and constitution, 
with those from which it has descended, and those 
with which it is connected. After that, the declin- 
ing will commence, which will only be arrested by 
crossing with some other family. 
There is no doubt that Bakewell adopted this sys- 
tem, and probably, Colling, too ; and there is little 
doubt that it is the readiest and simplest mode of 
