586 
ON THE BREEDING OF CATTLE. 
sesses the excellence which he wishes to engraft on his own breed. 
He tries the experiment, and, to his astonishment, it is a failure. 
His stock, so far from improving, has deteriorated. The cause of 
this every-day occurrence was, that he did not fairly estimate the 
extent of the principle from which he expected so much. This 
new bull had the good point that was wanting in his old stock, but 
he, too, was deficient somewhere else, and, therefore, although his 
cattle had in some degree been improved, that was more than 
counterbalanced by the inheritance of the bull’s defects. Here 
lies the secret of every failure, the grand principle of breeding. 
What can a farmer expect, if he sends a worthless cow to the 
best-bred bull 1 or, on the other hand, if his cows, although they 
may have many good qualities, are served by a bad bull that 
perhaps he has scarcely seen, or whose points he had not studied, 
and whose only recommendations are that he is close at hand, and 
may be had for a little money ? The question as to the influence 
of the sire and the dam is a difficult one to decide. That farmer 
will not err who applies the grand principle of breeding to both of 
them. In the present system of breeding, the most importance, 
and that very justly, is attributed to the male. He is a more 
valuable animal, and principally more valuable on account of the 
more numerous progeny that is to proceed from him, and thus his 
greater influence ; and therefore superior care is bestowed on the 
first selection of him for rearing. The farmer studies the bull calf 
closely, and assures himself that he possesses in a more than 
usual degree the characteristic excellencies of the breed. When 
this care as to the possession of such combination of good points 
has extended from the sire to the son through several successive 
generations it may be readily supposed that he will possess them 
in a higher degree than the female can. They will be made, as it 
were, a part and portion of his constitution, and he will acquire 
the power of more certainly, and to greater extent, communicating 
them to his offspring. Custom and convenience, however, induce 
the generality of breeders to look most to the male. 
The man of judgment will not, however, too long confine him- 
self to his own stock, unless it is a very numerous one. The 
breeding from close affinities — the breeding in and in — has many 
advantages to a certain extent. It may be pursued until the ex- 
cellent form and quality of the breed is developed and established. 
It was the source whence sprang the cattle and sheep of Bakewell, 
and the superior cattle of Colling ; and to it must be traced the 
speedy degeneracy — the absolute disappearance — of the new Lei- 
cester cattle, and, in the hands of many an agriculturist, the im- 
pairment of constitution and decreased value of the new Leicester 
sheep, and the short-horned beasts. It has become a kind of prin- 
