NEWS AND SUNDRIES. 
427 
inoculation is scarcely ever practiced until the disease has declared 
itself present in a member of the herd by the natural method, 
and consequently must have been present there for some weeks s 
the chances are that several animals are affected in every herd be¬ 
fore recource is had to inoculation. Therein lies the danger, and 
no doubt is the sole reason, that inoculated animals have been so 
frequently known to propagate pleuro among sound animals. No 
doubt, if great care be exercised in selecting the subjects for inoc¬ 
ulation, and if none but non-infected animals be inoculated, the 
contagium cannot be spread by them; hut he is a bold man who 
would declare that after he had exercised all his skill he could no^ 
be mistaken, and that he had not inoculated any animal who had 
contracted the disease by the natural method. The man is not 
boru who can discriminate with accuracy in this matter, and I re¬ 
peat therein lies the, I might almost say, sole objection to the prac¬ 
tice of inoculation for the eradication of pleuro-pneumonia, and 
it is an objection which will never be got over, because it is but a 
limited extent of the chest of the cow which is open to percussion 
and auscultation. 
Influence of the Sire on the Color of the Offspring.— 
Referring to the influence of the parents in breeding, a contribu¬ 
tor to the Live-Stock Journal, London, says: “As far as my obser¬ 
vation goes, a black sire always exercises an overpowering in¬ 
fluence upon color. I have less knowledge of horses than of any 
other variety of live stock ; but a black bull, of any variety, almost 
invariably leaves black calves, let the dam’s color be what it may. 
The only color which holds its own against the powerful black, is 
white. This will sometimes make the offspring of a black bull, 
blue or dun; but a red, or roan, or red-and-white dam accepts for 
its offspring nineteen times out of twenty, the black color un¬ 
mixed. Does any poultry breeder or pigeon breeder find that a 
red cock begets from hens of any other hue, nineteen-twentieths 
of the produce red? Yet this is what a black bull does. Do 
breeders of dogs find black sires thus prepotent ? Probably not, 
for black—which appears a natural color to cattle, and to which 
they are glad to revert—does not seem to be so with any dogs. I 
