136 
IMPROVEMENT OF DOMESTIC STOCK. 
tended from all parts of the United States. See 
Circular of the American Institute, and Convention 
of Breeders in this number. 
The Reading-Room of the Institute is now open 
to visitors, and will prove a most agreeable and in¬ 
structive lounge for all interested in agriculture, and 
mechanics. It is 40 feet square, and in addition to 
an extensive library, has numerous files of agricul¬ 
tural and scientific periodicals, open to all who de¬ 
sire an admission. It is pleasing to see the great 
and rapidly increasing attention among all classes 
to the subject of agriculture; it is beginning to be 
considered a science worthy the study of the most 
enlightened and profound. 
IMPROVEMENT OF DOMESTIC STOCK. 
Under this head we find in the Albany Cultiva¬ 
tor for last month, a long and elaborate article, 
parts of which recommend a course of breeding so 
directly opposite to all true principles of which we 
have ever read, or heard, or seen practised, by 
anything like what we should consider authority 
in this matter, that we can not pass it over in si¬ 
lence ; for if acted upon, it would totally destroy? 
in a single generation, every choice breed of ani¬ 
mals that we now possess, and which it has cost 
this and other countries, so much time, labor, and 
money, to bring to their present state of perfection. 
The Cultivator says, page 107, July No.:— 
“ But it may be doubted by some, whether any 
improvement on the best of the present high bred 
cattle, is possible, and the idea of it be scouted as 
an absurdity. * What,’ it may be said, ‘ talk of im¬ 
proving a breed by crossing them with those still 
lower in the scale ?” We answer yes , and hope to 
shew there is nothing chimerical in the plan. For 
illustration, we will again recur to the Short-Horns, 
as unquestionably at the head of the improved 
breeds. Breeders have enumerated a great num¬ 
ber of points as going to make a perfect animal; 
to make one absolutely perfect, we will suppose 
that 30 enumerated qualifications are requisite; 
that the Short-Horns, as approaching the nearest to 
this standard, possess 20 of the desired qualities; 
and the other varieties or breeds in a descending 
ratio down to our native stock, which may be put 
as possessing but 5 of these requisites.? The 
question is, can an animal possessing 20 good 
points be improved by one possessing only 10 or 5 ? 
We answer yes, if the one possessing 20 is defici¬ 
ent in any of the points possessed by the lowest, or 
by 5. 20 may be deficient in hardihood or the 
power of enduring our seasons; in milking proper¬ 
ties ; adaptation to labor; quality of flesh; or some 
other point or points possessed in a remarkable 
degree by 5; and this deficiency remedied by a 
skilful cross with 5, which shall engraft and fix 
the valuable point on 20, would make it 21, or fur¬ 
nish a decided advance towards animal perfection.” 
Now the idea of improving an animal that has 
twenty good points, with one that has only five, 
we can not characterise by milder terms than say¬ 
ing, is as gross and perfect a piece of absurdity as 
we ever heard. The Cultivator seems to suppose, 
that man has the same plastic power over the ani¬ 
mal creation, that the sculptor has over his clay 
model, and that wherever there is a deficiency in 
his subject, he has only to supply it with addition¬ 
al mortar, which he takes up from his heap at 
pleasure, or where there is an excess to simply 
pare it away! Now the only true principle of im¬ 
provement in breeding which we ever heard of, is 
this: If an animal be deficient in any one point or 
more, it must be crossed by another animal equal 
to it in all its good points, and superior to it in its 
deficient ones; and then the chance barely is, that 
one half the produce may be equal to the superior 
animal thus used in the cross, and the other half 
not inferior to the poorest. But if an animal of 
twenty good points be crossed with one of only five, 
no experienced person would expect that the pro¬ 
duce would possess over ten or twelve good points 
at most; and it would be a sort of miracle, if a sin¬ 
gle one of the produce had twenty-one good points 
infused into it. When animals are crossed, it is a 
law of nature that the blood mingles—it does not 
go in lumps. We must consequently take the bad 
with the good, and the extra hazard of deteriora¬ 
tion, to which all breeds are constantly subject. 
We know that now and then, though very rarely, 
for example, breeding a superior Short-Horn bull to 
a native cow, and that produce, if a female, to the 
same bull again, that the third geneiation, the 
three quarter-bred animal, will sometimes be a 
very good one—to all appearance, nearly as good as 
the thorough-bred bull; but the produce of that 
three fourths-bred can not be depended upon for 
equal and exact breeding. We have seen cows 
that had only one two hundred and fifty-sixth part 
of native blood in them, (and very fine animals 
they were too, individually), bred to a choice bull, 
throw a calf occasionally very inferior, more resem¬ 
bling the dung-hill than the thorough-bred. 
We suppose upon this principle, that to improve 
the Spanish fine-woolled sheep in hardiness 
(though we contend that the old fashioned Meri¬ 
nos were as hardy as anything that stands on four 
legs), the Cultivator would take a cross upon the 
old native, or other coarse-woolled breeds, thinking 
it could do so at will, without deteriorating the fine 
wool of the Spaniard. If so, let it look to Lord 
Western’s experiments on this matter to be con¬ 
vinced of the ill success of such undertakings. 
Again, to give size and strength to the racer, it 
