150 
most ancient English blood, with 12$ per cent each of four different French races. 
Here the English Mood showed strikingly in the offspring, all the lambs resembling 
each other. Even Englishmen took them for lambs of their own country. When 
these young ewes and ranis were bred together they produced Lambs closely resem- 
bling themselves, without any marked return to the features of the old French races, 
from which the granddams were derived. Slight traces only could be seen here and 
there by the experienced eye. This was the origin of the Charmois breed of sheep. 
M. Malingie-Nouel states that from the tirst dropping of his lambs the strongly 
marked English character gave the strongest hope that they would retain the excel- 
lences of the English sires and lie was not disappointed. The young animals as they 
grew up preserved their beauty of form, maintained their condition without extra- 
ordinary food, and did not suffer from weaning. The ewe lambs were carefully pre- 
served, a few ram lambs saved, and the rest castrated. The next year the same cross was 
tried with equal success. The third year was still more interesting. The tirst ewe 
lambs at the age of twenty months were bred to the rams that were saved. The off- 
spring was very uniform in quality, though from parents of a first cross. For years 
there was maintained at La Charmois a double set of lambs, one from the New-Kent 
rams and the mixed-blood ewes and the other from rams and ewes the result of that 
cross. There continued a perfect resemblance between the two sets of lambs obtained 
by the two methods. They were often divided into two lots and it was found 
impossible, even by careful examination, to distinguish one set of lambs from the 
other. This, M. Malingie-Nouel seemed to think, indicated the fixity of the breed. 
While this historical sketch of a breeding experiment deals with a breed unfamiliar 
to us, it has unusual interest from the fact that it is probably unique in the annals of 
breeding. Note the problem dealt with. First, the destructive conflict of breed 
characteristics. Second, being overcome by climatic conditions. Third, the survival 
of the fittest, when strength of blood was united to weakness. Fourth, overcoming 
climatic conditions. No more instructive experiment on the beneficial results to be 
secured from intelligent crossing is available to students of animal breeding than 
occurs in the origin of the Charmois breed of sheep. 
An interesting experiment in crossing is at present in progress in the United 
States. Mr. Charles Goodnight, of Clarendon, Tex., has for over twenty years been 
engaged in an attempt to cross the American buffalo on different breeds of cattle. 
In 1879 he captured four buffalo calves, and these he made use of as his foundation 
stock. By crossing these with our improved breedsof cattle, Mr. Goodnight has hoped 
to establish a new race or breed having certain valuable qualities for the semiarid 
grazing lands of the South w r est. Unless accomplished very recently, he has never been 
able to cross the buffalo with other breeds of cattle excepting the native Texas cow 
and the Galloway and Aberdeen-Angus. The Galloway crosses are hornless, thus 
showing the intense polled habit of the breed of this name, but otherwise they are 
somewhat uncertain. The Aberdeen- Angus crosses have proved more satisfactory and 
certain. With the Angus cross, all of the first calves proved to be females. The half- 
bred Angus heifers breed once a year, while the buffalo cow breeds only every two 
years. These half-bred cows mate well with buffalo bulls, but if a male hybrid 
results it is sterile, though the females of this blood breed readily. In a communi- 
cation to Dr. Norgaard, Mr. Goodnight says: 
"I have now been breeding them about twenty years and I am quite positive no 
case of blackleg has occurred during that time, and up to this writing it holds good 
to those that are only one-fourth blood. I will this year have several head of 
calves only one-eighth blood, and I shall give them every chance to take blackleg, 
in order to test them, although 1 think they are immune. 
"I have been trying for several years to establish a race of cattle from the buffalo. 
So far I have only partially succeeded. When this is done, it will be the greatest 
thing for the cattle industry of America. They have some characteristics that are 
very valuable to this interest. Besides their great w T eight and the extra quality of 
meat, they are, first, most probably immune from blackleg; second, they never eat 
loco; third, they never lie with their backs downhill, which causes so much loss in 
weak cattle; fourth, they do not go in bog holes; fifth, they have the greatest lungs 
in any animal on earth; sixth, they put on more flesh for what they eat than other 
animals." 
In connection with the exemption of this crossbred from blackleg, Mr. Goodnight 
was first moved to think of this from the fact, so far as his knowledge goes, based 
on extended experience with the buffalo in days of its abundance, that this animal 
never suffered from this disease. 
Mr. Goodnight's experiment is one of much interest from both the practical and 
scientific standpoints. He is pursuing his work rather from the standpoint of the 
experienced cattle breeder, crossing and recrossing, and bids fair to attain most 
interesting results of a useful character. 
