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Vol. XL. No. 8 .1 
Whole No. 1621. j 
NEW YORK, FEB. 19, 1881. 
( Price Five Cents, 
) 02.00 Per Year, 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
®jje pftijsntan. 
CLOSE BREEDING. 
BY A. STOCKMAN. 
Mr. Talcott does me great injustice, wheD, 
in his communication (page 84), he says my re¬ 
plies “ are shifts to avoid a direct answer in 
one way or another.” He says he asked the 
question “how maty, and where, are the de¬ 
scendants of Duchess, for information. I did 
not so understand him, but knowing that this 
is a stock question put by the opponents of 
what is called clo-e breeding, as a sort of 
knock-down argumert, a “ sockdologer” in 
fact, which finishes up an opponent and lays 
him out Fprawling, I took it in that sense, and 
declined to be laid out by it. Now Mr. Talcott 
says he asked for information only. I don’t 
think he requires any information, as he prob¬ 
ably knows enough of the present history of 
Short-horns to satisfy himself that what I have 
said of this noted family of them is perfectly 
true. If he knows nothing of it, he should 
not have written in the manner he did and tried 
to convey a distinct impression that the Duch¬ 
esses have gone to the *' bow-wows" hecauee 
of their too close and faulty breeding. If he 
knows all about it ha cannot ask for informa¬ 
tion. But I don't want to discuss this matter 
in aD.v but the kindliest spirit with Mr. Talcott— 
for whom I have great respect—and in the 
broadest spirit both as to the simple statement 
I originally made and aB regards the family of 
Short-horns brought into dispute. 
It is Hiking a narrow view of this very im¬ 
portant question to coniine it to the breeding 
of this particular family. I did not. I referred 
to Mr. Bates’s breeding generally, not to this 
one particular strain, and object strongly to 
the attempt made by Mr. Talcott to deprive me 
of the broad ground on which I placed myself, 
and to drive me into a supposed corner, and 
then to try to shpt me in that corner by con¬ 
fining me to the narrowest line of “ the Bates 
Duchess family,” and ignoring all the 
branches of the family. I claim that a 
line of breeding is to be judged by its 
full effects, and not by the condition 
of a particular family, from which 
the breeder made his chief reputation. 
Looking at the Duchesses in this light, 
all the offshoots of that family should 
be taken into account, and not only 
the direct line of it. Besides. Mr. 
Bates left the Duchesses in veiygood 
shape at his death and with the high¬ 
est reputation among Short-horns, and 
whatever rasy have bappem-d to them 
since then—if they had become ex- 
tiuct even—should not be laid to bis 
charge or to the charge of his system 
of breeding. It is true he left but 14 
head, all told, of this family ; but they 
were certainly the best Short-horns in 
existence then and sold for the highest 
prices uuder adverse circumstances. 
Four of the Duchesses auyhow were 
good enough to be Drought to America 
a few years afterwards at what were 
then extreme prices. 
But the family have by no means 
become extinct and have yet a reputa¬ 
tion to be proud of. It is a very short 
time since (187?) two of them were 
sold from llillhurst at 4300 and 4500 
guineas, about$22,500and$33,600, Logo 
to England, and the man who bought 
them was no fool. Notwithstanding there have 
been but few crosses on this family, there are 
nearly 40 Duchesses in England, and some 
are still left on this side of the water in spite 
of the desire of English breeders to possess 
them. The reason why Mr. Bates left so few 
at his death, I might say in reply to Mr. Tal- 
cott’s question (which i don’t want to avoid in 
any way) is that that gentleman bred his Short¬ 
horns for reputation ; it was a passion of bis 
and he gave his life and work to it. Desirous 
of proving the wisdom of his method, he, 
doubtless, as many other breeders have done 
and do, fed and slaughtered every animal that 
did not come up to his ideal. That he would 
sell any inferior animal is not to be supposed 
for a moment or that he would keep one for 
breeding, if money making was his business, 
he might have done that. Bat it was not, and 
his success cannot be doubted although there 
are persona now who think they could have 
done better with his stock than he did, and 
could have taught him some things about 
breeding. 
But all this is wide of the point I wished to 
make, which is. that under certain circum¬ 
stances, cloBe breeding is not only advisable 
but absolutely necessary to fix a type of char¬ 
acter that may be desired. I know this is a dis¬ 
puted point among breeders. I may be wrong 
and Mr. Talcott may be right. I may be preju¬ 
diced, but I don’t think it, fori can change an 
opinion when I see that I have been wrong. 
But I see nothing to weaken my faith. Not 
even the defects of the Duchesses have this 
effect; their " shy breeding;" their “constitu¬ 
tional weaknesses’’ and other faults so charged 
by their adversaries, but not admitted by their 
friends, and not very apparent to me. On the 
contrary, I consider that the Duchess family 
has not only added directly a vast amount of 
money value to our live stock; but that its ex¬ 
ample has indirectly greatly stimulated the 
best methods of breeding by other stock breed¬ 
ers and has thus largely added to the wealth 
of the world. But Mr. Talcott has no right to 
pick out the Duchesses as his “frightful ex¬ 
ample" of what he considers injurious breed¬ 
ing, nor to found his objection to Mr. Bates’s 
system of breeding solely on his disparage¬ 
ments of this family, or their failure since 
Mr. Bates’s death to come up to his, and other 
judges', ideas of excellence. I would offer as 
encouragement for breeders of the present 
day (in reply to hia question again) not only 
Mr. Bates's success with the Duchesses, but 
with his other families, aud as well the suc¬ 
cess of other noted breeders. Goldsmith’s Maid 
might be mentioned as an example of close 
breeding aud she has shown no want of vigor 
or power in consequence. She is all Messen¬ 
ger blood on both sides except one cross of 
Bellfounder in the grandsire aud both her 
grandsire and dam were sired by Abdallah. 
Mr. Atwood's renowned flock of Merinos were 
bred from one sire, and he never used any but 
pure Humphrey rams; and the Humphrey 
flock was close bred. Mr. Hammond bred his 
flock in-and-in and never went outside of it. 
nis noted ram Gold Drop, for which $35,000 was 
offered and refused, was full of “ old blacK” 
blood ; and hiB dam Old Queen was the grand- 
dam of his sire and consequently his own great 
grand dam, and Sweepstakes was the sire of 
both his sire and his dam; for his dam Beauty 
was by Sweepstakes out of Old Queen, and 
his sire California was by Sweepstakes out of 
Beauty his own daughter. The history of the 
best and most successful stock breeding is 
full of such examples and yet Mr. Talcott 
finds fault with me for complaining that the 
great bugbear of farmers is close breeding. It 
is only because they are uninformed of the 
facts. But Mr. Talcott is informed and theie- 
foreifhesins at all it is against light. Now 
I ask Mr. Talcott to give us some examples 
on his side as illustrious as those I have 
given, aud ootto "make any shifts to avoid 
giving a direct answer.” 
-- 
IN-BREEDING DISCUSSED BY A BREEDER. 
Practical Lessons amt Suggestions. 
COL. F. D. CURTIS. 
Tub discussion between “ Stockman ” and 
Mr. Talcott is interesting, because both are 
right and both may be wronir. “ Stockman ” 
is right when he asserts that both cattle and 
sheep have been improved by in-breeding. 
This is the way that all improved breeds of 
these animals have been brought to perfection, 
and those special types of the breeds or fami¬ 
lies have been established. There is no other 
way in which it can be done. We are now en¬ 
gaged in forming a family or special type of 
Jersey and Ayrshire cattle by the in-breeding 
system. A valuable Jersey cow, “Princess 
Caroline." is being crossed by her own off. 
spring, in order that her characteristics may 
be thoroughly established tn her descendants. 
She has been bred to her son, and we intend to 
follow thi6 line of in-breeding until a family 
and a race of “Princess Carolines" shall be 
established. In this way we expect to perpet¬ 
uate not only her form, which is a perfect 
model of a cow, but other points of excellence. 
An out-cross with another family would intro¬ 
duce other features, not so valuable, in our 
j udgment. or, at least, destroy the intensity of 
the blood, which is one of the constitutional 
qualities which we expect to incorporate in it. 
This intensity of blood or thoroughbred princi¬ 
ple is what gives a thoroughbred its value, and 
j ust so far as it is established the thorough¬ 
bred is superior to the cross-bred, either of 
breeds or families. We are also trying to es¬ 
tablish a perfect family of Ayrshires by breed¬ 
ing together the offspring of the cow “Polyan¬ 
thus.” A son of “ Polyanthus ” has been used 
as the sire, and a son of this union will again 
be used as a sire. So far there has been no 
evidence in either of these experiments of a 
want of constitutional vigor, but there is a 
decided similarity in type and characteristics. 
It is true, as “ Stockman ” remarks, that the 
most successful breeders of 6heep in England 
have perfected them by in-breeding. The 
same system has been practiced by the Merino 
breeders in this country, and in no other way 
have they attained success and established the 
different families of improved Merinos. In 
France the Bame law has governed the Merino 
breeders, and the famous French Merinos owe 
their pre-sraiuence to careful in-breeding. 
Pigs will not bear close in-breeding. They wil\ 
rapidly degenerate. They may be in-bred for 
two or thr*3 generations of blood relation, but 
beyond that it cannot be carried without physi¬ 
cal weaknesses. An out-cross of new blood will 
correct these deficiencies, but at the same time 
change the type and destroy the thoroughbred 
principle. Thoroughbred breeds of pigs can 
only be established I y having a number of fami¬ 
lies similar in blood and characteristics, but of 
sufficiently remote relation to admit of being 
bred together. An in-and-out crossing of 
these families must be frequently made to keep 
up the standard and prevent degeneracy. No 
doubt the same rule would improve the consti¬ 
tutional vigor of cattle or sheep. If it could be 
carried out as readily with them, but as their 
posterity is more limited, it is not so easily 
done. 
Breeding to improve stock is an intricate 
work, and requires not only close ob¬ 
servation, coupled with careful study, 
but a great deal of experience. The 
theorist will find himself baffled fre¬ 
quently, and any one is liable, even 
with years of effort, to signally fail. 
Americans have always been in the 
way, with veiy few exceptions, of de¬ 
pending open Great Britain for their 
improved animate, except, perhaps, 
Merino sheep and trotting horses; 
and a great deal of money has cross¬ 
ed the Atlantic for thoroughbred 
stock which should have been pio- 
duced on this side. This want of 
confidence in ourselves should give 
way, as a matter of economy aud as 
a basis for inspiration for American 
farmers, to a determination to im¬ 
prove the native stock, and also to 
improve the thoroughbred animate 
which we already have. It is an un¬ 
patriotic, if not a senseless idea, that 
American farmers should be depend¬ 
ent upon foreign breeders, or that 
foreign stock should out-jell home¬ 
bred. We hope to see the day when 
American-born thoroughbreds shall 
out-rank, in fashion and in price, 
imported. 
Advantages of Polled Cattle. 
Polled cattle are so uncommon that 
they are considered unsightly in appeal ance. 
But if the case were reversed aLd horned cattle 
were rare, then these would appear equally 
odd; and the question might arise, do not 
horns mar their appearance ? They certainly 
have no utility and are often 60 ill-shaped as to 
destroy the animal's beauty, and when broken 
or torn off, which is frequently tli6 case, they 
JERSEY BULL, STOCKWELL 3d.—Fig. 87. 
