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A thoroughly prosperous breeder selects his stock 
with much discrimination, readily expends labour 
and money to obtain at a distance a better animal 
than he can procure at hand, keenly observes the 
practices or notes the principles of other successful 
breeders, and omits no practical precaution, how- 
ever minute, for securing excellence in the pro- 
geny, averting disease, and effecting a plump, 
early, and ample maturity. 
The natural progress of the art of breeding is 
well illustrated, by Mr. James Dickson of Edin- 
burgh, in a supposititious case, which we shall here 
transfer to our pages. “The securing of the 
greatest profit in breeding with the least labour, 
consists in procuring that breed which will at- 
tain the greatest weight and maturity in the 
shortest time, and on the least quantity of food. 
On observing the progress of different individuals 
of the same breed of cattle, every breeder may 
have noticed that some individuals fatten quicker 
than others under the same treatment ; and were 
the cattle of different breeds, the difference in 
the progress of fatness would probably be the 
more striking. Results so obvious cannot fail to 
rouse the inquiries of the breeder. How is it 
that animals of different breeds, or individuals of 
the same breed, fatten faster than others? They 
all receive the same attention and care, food and 
comfort. On inspecting the subject more closely, 
the breeder discovers that those animals which 
improve fastest, are the most beautiful to appear- 
ance, and most handsomely formed. Out of re- 
gard for them, he has a desire to handle and fon- 
dle them, when he makes a new discovery—he 
finds that their skins feel agreeable to the touch, 
are loose, and easily laid hold of. Their bodies 
are soft and fat, and he can press his fingers into 
the flesh, which springs back again in an elastic 
manner. He can also ascertain the same proper- 
ties in the parents of the respective cattle which 
have thus exhibited them ; and when he has made 
this observation, he has made another discovery. 
| He thereby learns, that cattle possessing certain 
good and useful properties, have the power of 
imparting them to their progeny. He becomes 
convinced that good properties are hereditary ; 
and, by a parity of reasoning and observation, he 
concludes that bad properties are also hereditary. 
He therefore retains the breeding stock which 
possesses the good properties, and disposes of the 
rest which possess the bad, and fills up their 
place with animals possessing properties similar 
to the first. His mind having thus been awak- 
ened to the proper course to be pursued in breed- 
ing, he perseveres in the selection of the best 
animals, and, in the course of time, his experience 
and taste correct the defects which may exist in 
even the minuter properties of his animals. Some 
of these minute defects may not exhibit them- 
selves for some time, even for years; but when 
| they do appear, the animals having them are re- 
moved, and those only cherished which have pre- 
served all the good properties to the latest period. 
BREEDING. 
“Having thus procured that breed which at- 
tains the greatest weight and maturity in the 
shortest time, and on the least quantity of food, 
not absolutely but relatively to other breeds (for 
it is perhaps not in the power of man to fashion 
an absolutely perfect breed of cattle, which these 
qualifications would indicate), the breeder’s next 
consideration is how to preserve the good proper- 
ties which have been acquired in his cattle. This 
consideration will be early impressed upon him, 
for he knows that the possession of any good thing 
is but a fleeting acquisition ; for he sees that 
others more than he cannot retain a good thing 
permanently, for everything becomes the more 
evanescent the purer it is. He finds this to be 
true in regard to cattle. The good properties 
gradually disappear, one after another. ‘The 
more minute properties disappear first, as it were 
stealthily, before he is aware of their disappear- 
ance. He finds, to his amazement and embar- 
rassment, that his cattle are undergoing an evi- 
dent change for the worse. They are becoming 
smaller, they are more tender, more easily hurt 
by change of food and weather ; they show symp- 
toms of internal disease, and some even die in 
spite of his attempts to preserve them. He be- 
comes alarmed, he ascribes the change perhaps 
to some temporary change in the atmosphere, to 
some epidemic, which will pass away with the 
season; and, at all events, he cannot ascribe the 
mismanagement on his part, as a cause of the 
disheartening change. He is not conscious of 
having deviated from the exact line of conduct | 
which has hitherto led him to prosperity and 
fame. He finds himself in a dilemma. If he 
continues as he has latterly proceeded in his me- 
thod of breeding, he fears that the value of the 
cattle, upon which he has bestowed so much care, 
and of whose beautiful appearance he is justly 
proud, will decline every year. It is no easy 
matter for a breeder to extricate himself out of 
such a difficulty. The many conjectures which | 
he forms to account for the unfortunate change, | 
the epidemic among the rest, have now lost his 
confidence, and he begins to distrust his later 
management, and attempts to discover an error 
of judgment. or of practice. But although an 
error of judgment or of practice had produced the 
effects, its Immediate connexion with them may 
not be very apparent; and, at all events, he is 
reluctant to acknowledge that it is easy to ac- 
count for so great a change as has taken place in 
his stock. He cannot conceive that a pursuance 
of the same plan which has perfected his animals, 
can at any time be detrimental to them. He 
resolves, however, to proceed in future with cir- 
cumspection. The first precaution which he uses 
is to change his breeding stock, in that line whose 
progeny have shown the greatest change. He 
purchases a bull from the best breeder in the 
county. This is at least a safe step. On com- 
parison, his eyes are opened to the lamentable 
fact, that his present favourite bull which has 
iss as sue 
